


Feel Like A Brand New Person

by DairyFarmer



Series: screwed up au's [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Bottom Tim Drake, Coercion, Creampie, Crossdressing, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dissociation, Female Genitalia Terms Used, Identity Porn, Inappropriate Behavior, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Tim Drake/Dick Grayson, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Prostitution, Top Bruce Wayne, Undercover Missions, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Sex, however Bruce is not blameless, no clear victim or abuser dynamic, to an extent but it is present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DairyFarmer/pseuds/DairyFarmer
Summary: They didn’t start it on purpose- neither of them.Or maybe somehow they encouraged it all along?---Tim goes deep into his undercover operations and is willing to do anything for the sake of the mission, including fucking Bruce.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Dick Grayson
Series: screwed up au's [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147763
Comments: 29
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Form of Confession](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392) by [derryderrydown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryderrydown/pseuds/derryderrydown). 
  * Inspired by [Glorious](https://archiveofourown.org/works/538961) by [cornflakepizza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornflakepizza/pseuds/cornflakepizza). 
  * Inspired by [Private Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/804576) by [iesika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iesika/pseuds/iesika). 



> please make sure to read the tags carefully- fair warning  
> 

They didn’t start it on purpose- neither of them. 

Or maybe somehow they encouraged it all along?

Years down the line and Tim wondered what would happen if other heroes were tipped off to it. Questions with a combination of disgust and curiosity, asking things like ‘how did this happen?’ ‘how long could this have gone on?’...’why didn’t I notice?’.

Personally, Tim thought that the answer to that last one was ‘because you didn’t want to see it’. 

The human mind was a fascinating device, the way it could be twisted and _squeezed_ and roughed up. Compartmentalization was like that. 

Or rather, made it so it _didn’t_ have to be like that. 

Tim was good at pretending that he was someone else. The Tim that went to school, that his parents saw, that stalked Batman, that hung out with his friends. They were all different people, branches all attached to the same tree but branches nonetheless. 

The first time Tim needs to go into deep cover- needs to be a twitchy, homeless youth he just...he sprouts a new tree. 

It seemed like an obvious move- and if Tim admitted it under the pain of interrogation he...liked it. He liked choosing his new birthday (which didn’t mean shit to Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Eliot since no one ever celebrated it), choosing his new name (randomizing a first name off some website and stealing the last name off a library book from his boarding school), deciding what his backstory would be (dad was a loser who couldn’t hold a job, mom’s been in and out of prison since he could toddle). 

From there it’s a number of things to refine the cover story- bleaching his hair and dying it a soft honey brown. Going to the thrift store and picking out a worn outfit and wearing it down even more to simulate the hardship of being on the street. He even picks out a pair of sneakers out of a dumpster that are breaking at the soles and water damaged enough that they make Tim’s feet feel more cold and slimy than warm and protected. Then came the research. Lots of the kids and teens on the street were the ones from shitty family’s or even shittier situations. People of color, members of the LGBT+ community, immigrants, drug users, and sex workers. 

Tim watched them like he’d watched Batman. Watched how they would walk with a slope of their shoulders, how they trudged along carefully to avoid putting more weight on their tired feet, the exhausted lines of their face. 

He also learns their names because homeless people have a community the same way any other group of people with a shared misfortune have a community. Tony, Mara, Lucas, Elijah, Joaquin- people he could potentially name drop if anyone tried poking around to his backstory. 

Then one day, the day Tim’s investigation was supposed to start he just...slips into it.

\----

Nicky was pissed because his latest job had fallen through so he was stuck in some piss smelling shit ass ally.

“Fuckin’ gross ass, dick suckin’, cock wipin’ _pigs_ .” He cursed, kicking an empty beer bottle down the sewer scum coated floor. _Fuck_. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

That job had been his ticket to score some warm food for once and get off the streets for a few days. It was just his luck that every small fry in crime alley was getting rounded up with the commish’s latest raid.

“Woah, what’s up your ass, kid?”

Nicky swiveled around to the group of smoking teens at the other end of the line of apartments.

Most of them weren’t paying him any mind, a few were watching with raised brows or amused quirks of their lips. The one who spoke was a dark skinned teen with a navy puffer jacket that made him look like one of those blown up fish.

“Who tha fuck are you?” He asked, lips curling in annoyance at being sneaked up on. His feet were tensed, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble because he wasn’t sure of his chances of running away from a group this big even, with their compromised lung capacity. 

Plus it was too late to pull the ‘nice kid’ schtick he sometimes had to pull out of his pocket. _‘Mind your manners, Nicky’_ his mom used to tell him as she shakily fixed her hair and smeared lipstick in the car’s rear view mirror, acting like the red and blue flashing lights behind them wouldn’t be able to smell the beer on her breath the minute she rolled down the window.

The puffer fish raised a brow at him, breathing a cloud of smoke out in Nicky’s direction. 

“I mean you came into _my_ alley, disturbing _my_ peace, shrimp.” 

Nicky bristled at the nickname, he was almost fifteen-fucking-years old. Then he considered the amount of uninterested eyes that suddenly began leveling him with a _look_.

Fuck.

Nicky forced his shoulders to untense, his eyes lowering away from the previous, indignant challenge. 

“That shitbag Gordon is on a powertrip and doin’ a roundup.” 

No point in lying, it’s not like it’d make any difference since they’d be finding out soon anyway- with the way a new block was getting busted every evening. 

Puffer fish suddenly straightened, his companions also quelling their murmured conversations to face Nicky.

“Is thatta fact?” He asked, thick brow raising in question. Nicky went right back to bristling because fuck this guy, Nicky’s intel _was good._

“Yeah, you wanna ask the girls on the corner of Strauss and Levy? Cuz I hear their pimp’s bailin’ em’ out in a few days.”

Puffer jacket pushed off from the brick wall he was leaning against, handing his lit cigarette off to a latino boy that snuffed it out against the floor with his shoe.

“That why you were down here spittin’ like a dog? Lost your girl?”

“As if!” Nicky scoffed, rubbing his hands together to try and warm up from the biting cold. “All the runnin’ jobs went with the fuckin idiots that were stupid enough to get caught.”

That included Nicky’s last meal ticket.

Great now he was pissed again.

“You seem to know a lot for a shrimp.” Puffer fish observed, stopping in front of Nicky- close enough that he could see how shiny and new his shoes were. Nicky glanced down at his own torn laces and grey sneakers that _may_ have once been white.

“Yeah well, _this_ shrimp’s gotta find a new score, so if you don’t mind-”

Puffer fish immediately blocked Nicky’s way again, his dark eyes meeting Nicky’s brown.

“Well then I guess your luck’s about to turn- you said you were a runner?”

Nicky’s eyes locked onto the fleece half-zip the hood in front of him was wearing. His shoulders began shivering slightly from only wearing a tank top layered on top of another. 

Fuck it. 

It’s not like Nicky’s never run for the gangbangers before.

\----

Tim snapped to attention sitting on a gurney in the batcave. Batman was kneeled slightly in front of him, cleaning his skinned knee with a cotton ball of hydrogen peroxide. 

“Ow.” Tim muttered at the slight sting. His nose was still running from the paprika laden goulash Martínez’s girlfriend made. The new knit gloves on Tim’s hands were swiftly pulled off, followed by the shrugging of the black teddy jacket one of Roscoe’s sisters had outgrown.

“Ungg,” Tim whined, holding a hand against his chest where he could feel the congested sting of the tar cigarettes he’d spent the last three weeks smoking. “H-How’d the raid go?”

“Flawlessly.” Batman replied, pushing up from his slightly kneeled position. “Your information was good and the GCPD were able to arrest the Blue Dogs at their usual hideouts.”

Tim hummed. He could feel a deep bruise between his shoulder blades that would throb slightly with every movement of his shoulders.

“Di’ I get hit?” He asked, wincing as he released his spine from it’s perpetual slouch back into his usual straight-shouldered posture. 

“I had to use some force when Nicholas wouldn’t cooperate.”

Tim’s nose twitched, the ache of when he’d taken an empty beer can to the face still throbbing slightly. 

“What’d he do? Try to bite you or something?”

Tim could see that as something Nicky would do.

“....He tried to choke me.”

Tim squinted, subtly testing out each of his limbs and feeling no pain aside from his knee and between his shoulder blades.

“Yeah, Trent took a taekwondo class once and tried to teach him some moves, he was mostly wrong though.”

“Good to know.” Batman replied, spreading a thick ointment onto Tim’s friction burned skin. “Your cover was good and you managed to work your way up the ranks quickly.”

Tim brightened, sore shoulders straightening further as he pushed himself up on the gurney. That was as close to a ‘good job’ as Tim had ever heard from Batman.

“Given that you were undercover for three weeks, I’ll be expecting your report by next weekend, unless there’s any pressing matters to present.”

Tim immediately shook his head, licking his lips and trying to ignore the craving for the black cherry soda from the bodega off St. Mark’s street.

“No-uh, I-I have all the conversations on tape, even the one where I first crossed paths with the Blue Dogs’ lieutenant.”

It’d been hard to find a place to hide the mic on his body, but he’d finally settled for pinning one of the bat bugs behind the buckle of Nicky’s belt. Hot Rod’s, (the lieutenant for the Blue Dogs, Ronald Murphy) views on homosexualty were well known so there was no chance that the initiation rite would involve anything beyond the 60 second beating all new members were subjected to.

“Without a gang, Nicholas is probably going to go back underground- at least until people forget his face.” 

Tim nodded slowly. Nicky was always going to be a throwaway profile, a beta test. Just to see how well the technique could work when in deep cover missions like the Blue Dogs case had been.

But Bruce’s words, that Nicky would be going underground- he hadn’t told Tim to fully retire the profile.

Tim continued to stare, his eyes locked onto the whites of Batman’s cowl. Bruce finished ripping a square of gauze out of it’s sterile package, applying it carefully to Tim’s knee before wrapping it tightly. Tim flexed as soon as he was let go, test kicking the limb and letting out a hum of satisfaction when it didn’t shift out of place.

Batman’s cowled eyes stared down at Tim for a beat longer before-

“Get some rest. You’re back on patrol tomorrow so take the night to recover.”

Tim nodded diligently, hopping down from the gurney and shivering at the cold cave floor. Nicky lost his new shoes to Gotham harbor, wasn’t that a tragedy.

Tim makes his way up the stairs to the grandfather clock exit, the whole time feeling the lingering weight of Batman’s gaze on his back.

There was a strange sort of...disconnect between Tim and the events of the last three weeks. Consciously, he knew it was him out there, putting his body and wellbeing at risk for the sake of the mission. 

But the hands weren’t his, the words and actions were that of someone else- of Nicholas Elios. Streetrat from a broken home that made the company of a burgeoning streetgang that fed him pizza and mozzarella sticks because he was more of a pet than an actual member.

But Bruce’s approval was hard to earn so if Tim skipped up the stairs to his guest room- well, then he felt like he’d earned it.

\----

It continued- it continued because Tim was good at it. 

He was Jackson, the son of a banker from Star City. Michelle, a cute blonde who attended Gotham Prep and liked coke a little too much. Georgi, a Russian immigrant with a penchant for slavik delis. Caroline, the well endowed med student. Alvin, the scruffy troublemaker from Eastlyn.

It got to the point that Tim had an entire corner of the cave just dedicated to drawers of each of his more commonly used aliases. Compared to other types of cases, Tim’s undercover ops all tended to go off without a hitch.

Which was why Batman started entrusting him with higher level stuff. Making nice with Maroni’s gangsters. Being a runner for the Ghost Dragons. A serving girl at the Iceberg Lounge.

The big cases tended to be rare and few between. So were all the 'quick' profiles that Tim employed just to get into someplace he wasn’t supposed to. 

People like Nicky were his strongest suit, the ones that required full immersion and Tim taking a backseat to whatever was going on outside his headspace. 

It’s what made him suited for the honeypots. 

That was probably where the shift started.

The longest Tim had ever gone under was three months. It took him weeks to finish and prepare all his schoolwork to automatically submit at a designated time while he was out as Heather Woode, a working girl in one of the ‘clubs’ that were actually fronts for brothels in Gotham. That didn’t even include the days it took him to properly immerse himself.

Crossover in cases was rare but something he always accounted for- it was how Tim was able to deal with one of Batman’s cases ending up at the establishment that Tim was working.

\----

Matches Malone was tall and _built_ \- a far cry from the usual clientele that Heather usually ended up servicing. 

The mustache was a turn off though. It was a bushy thing that grew on the man’s upper lip like a mold. Heather could see the slightest twitch of his brow when she looked into the lens of his sunglasses.

“You like her, Malone?” One of her drunker regulars asked, his arm woozily pointing toward Heather.

Aw fuck and here she was looking to just serve a few drinks and pass the night on tips. The bed the brothel’s pimp gave her was curved weird and she’d been nursing a sore lower back the last few weeks.

“Cuz she’s a good one- I tell ya, _she takes it in the back like a champ_.”

The last part was probably an attempt at a whisper. If it was, it was a piss fuckin poor attempt and Heather resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

She had two options when it came to bringing up one of her tricks to the rooms in the back. One, let them plow her cunt while a loose spring dug into her spine. Or two, lie on her stomach and let them take her ass and not struggle to get up the next morning when Big Daddy made his rounds.

‘Malone’ shifted, his garish satin shirt glinting in the club lights as Heather lowered the tray of cocktails and beers to the table. A few of her coworkers were making great progress in securing a deal with the other men at the table.

“We still gotta a lot to talk about Jerry-” 

Jerry was a little thick around the thighs but his hands were hard and calloused from serving as an enforcer for the Maroni’s (supposedly). Heather knew because they were what pinned her hips down when he fucked his cock into her ass. 

Now they were slapping at Malone’s back with a smoky laugh, one of his hands shifting into his blazer pocket for a roll of twenties tied with a rubber band. 

“Always 'work' with you Malone- tell you what, get it outta your system with my girl here and-”

Jerry started pulling out a few bills, sliding them in Heather’s direction.

“-I’ll let you know all the details, so long as you let _me know all the details_ when you’re done.”

A round of chuckles and snorts ran around the table because they all knew how picky Heather was with her clients. She was one of the few girls that adamantly insisted on condoms which turned her off from more than a few potential clients.

“Jerr-”

“Go on Malone!” Jerry jeered, pushing Malone into Heather’s direction. She was already counting up the bills and picking up her empty tray. 

“Plant a fat load in her pussy or somethin’, take the edge off.”

Heather actually did roll her eyes this time and began wrapping a hand around ‘Malone’s’ wrist, tugging him along to follow her once she finished counting.

“I wouldn’t fight him on it if I were you.” Heather offered, dropping her tray in one of the silverware buckets. Malone was half dragging his feet behind her. Stopping when Heather halted to drop off Jerry’s money to one of the counters at the divider between the backrooms and the club.

“Only one tonight, Woode?” Cherry asked, brows raised. Heather shrugged, movement that jostled her against Malone. At some point he’d gotten close enough to press against Heather’s back. Heather obligingly leant back, letting the curve of her ass press against his half chub cock.

Malone’s breath hitched quietly. So quiet, Heather almost missed it from under the sound of the club. At least he wasn’t like one of her more grabby Johns, tugging and pulling at her dress- trying to mouth her tits on the floor.

“Your usual room’s open, here. Have a good night, 408.” 

Heather resisted the urge to sigh and accepted the key and condom without a word, pulling Malone to follow her. The climb up was quiet, nothing aside from Heather’s heels clacking as they trudged their way up the four stories to their given room. She and Malone passed by a number of rooms with their thin doors barely muffling the cries and grunts of the people inside. The air was thick with the smell of sex and semen that had Heather breathing through her mouth- even after weeks of being there.

“Quite a climb.” Malone muttered, his lens covered eyes scanning along the halls with barely disguised interest. 

Heather shrugged, stopping in front of the door marked ‘408’ with white paint.

“You’d be surprised what some people would do to get their dicks wet.”

Malone followed her into the dimly lit room, his hand sliding the door closed and locking it.

“Maybe not as much as you think.” He replied in a vaguely amused tone.

Heather turned around and watched Malone’s tensed shoulders slump slightly, his mouth parting open to say something else. But Heather wasn’t getting paid to play Chatty Cathy with the John in front of her. 

So Heather dropped to her knees, pushing forward and mouthing at the clothed cock in front of her. The impression of pink lipstick was left behind and Heather just knew it’d be something Malone would catch flack about when he made his way back down.

That was the point.

Malone carded his hands through Heather’s hair, wrapping it into a few strands and using it to hold her head still. Heather looked up at him, meeting his wide eyed gaze from where his glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose.

“What?” She asked, leaning back and beginning to work down his zipper. “Did you just wanna jump straight to it?”

He wouldn’t be the first John she had turn down a blowjob, but she could count the number who had on a single hand and still have fingers left over.

Malone kept staring down at her, his jaw tensed as his eyes shifted the slightest bit with what looked like indecision.

“I...what?”

Heather pushed a sigh through her nose, finishing with the buckle and letting the front of Malone’s dress pants hang open. Pushing herself up with the slightest grimace at the strain on her ankles from the heels, Heather grabbed onto Malone’s bicep and stumbled them back towards the bed.

Part of her just wanted him to get out of whatever fugue he was in so she could go back down and try to earn more tips before the night was out.

The other part was tired from climbing all those stairs in heels and not looking forward to another few hours on the floor once she was done getting fucked.

“You don’t have all night, Malone.” She sighed, reaching for the XXL bottle of water lube on the nightstand. “Jerry paid for the hour, so alls your getting is an hour.”

No refunds either. Heather was strict with that policy and Big Daddy approved. You pass out during the session or you’re too drunk as skunk to fucking remember up from down? That was your fault.

Malone stared at her, eyes suddenly sharpening as Heather poured a decent amount of lube into her palm.

“I... _Tim_.” Malone’s mouth opened and closed, looking all the world like he was deciding whether to say anything at all.

Heather’s brows furrowed, something in the back of her head beginning to click like the broken button of a remote. 

“Who the fuck is Tim?”

Malone stared at her, blue eyes suddenly holding more clarity than they had been the whole night. Surpsing. Especially since Heather was pretty sure she saw him down at least three kiwi daiquiri, a gin and tonic, and a glass of the fancy scotch they kept on the topshelf. 

Must be more fucked up than he appeared to be. 

Rolling her eyes, Heather stepped forward, pulling the waistband of Malone’s dollar store undies down and exposing his flushed cock. 

“Well looks like the alcohol hasn’t impaired you completely, Malone.” She commented like a sports announcer. She wrapped a wet fist around the head and began working her wrist to stroke and jack it to it’s full length. “That’s good. I hate fucking myself on soft cock.”

Malone let out some throaty sound, his hands clenching at his side. His fingers dug into his thick palms before stretching out along his thighs in a sith of agitation. 

She may have to hurry it along

Heather slowly inched him towards the bed, pushing Malone back until he was sitting on the shitty mattress that probably carried more STDs than a hooker at a truck stop. There was a lot she could say about Big Daddy but at least he made sure all his girls were kept clean (to an extent).

“So, are we just doin handies tonight?” Heather asked, probing as she rubbed her thumb against the spongy head of Malone’s cock. It was a nice cock, admittedly. Thick and veiny with a trimmed patch of hair at the base. And _pink._ Pink like the soft pussy of Candy from the second floor that she knew clients loved, like the soft petals of a bella rosa.

Malone looked up at her from behind the tint of his sunglasses.

“You want me to fuck you.” He stated. 

It wasn’t a question.

Heather raised a brow. 

“Do _you_ want to fuck me?”

Malone stared down at her, his throat working- she could see the slight strain of veins against his neck.

Before she could blink, Heather was on her back. Malone was nestled between her thighs, one of his hands pushing apart her stocking clad legs and another lifting up the fabric of her slip dress.

She could feel she was wet, her clit throbbing in want as Malone lowered his head to mouth at her tit. She couldn’t feel the warmth of his mouth, her bra too thick and padded for it but she could feel the pressure as he mouthed at her like a kitten looking for mama.

Malone grunted as he fumbled to pull off Heather’s underwear, so she lifted her legs obligingly- allowing him to tear the cheap lingerie off easier. 

Malone tucked his face into Heather’s neck, burying his cold nose against her throat as his suddenly lube slicked hands started reaching for her bud, hand messily touching and stroking at it.

Heather hissed, a cut off sound of pleasure getting trapped in her throat. 

“ 'm Gunna fuck you.” Malone whispered to her. 

Heather huffed, rolling her eyes. _Duh_ , that was the whole point.

“Gunna fuck your _pussy_.” Malone growled at her, sounding more beast than man as he pushed wet and warm cock against her opening. 

Heather felt a thrill of something race down her spine, goosebumps raising all along her arms and back. She knew she was loose enough to take a cock, her occupation forcing her to take an hour or so before her shift to stretch each of her holes out for the working day.

It’s why she only kind of yelled when Malone speared into her cunt with a heaving grunt. She immediately twitched around him, her mouth falling open as Malone started stroking into her, his muffled grunts getting pushed against Heather’s neck.

“ _Ah! ahhn! hnnn! Ah!_ ” Heather let out little cries, the sound punched out of her with every thrust of Malone’s dick. 

Malone’s hands pinned Heather’s down, allowing her no reprieve or letting her reach down to stroke and roll her clit. 

“ _Nnn, hah hahh- fuck!_ ” 

Malone grunted like a gorilla over her, his tongue licking at her neck and kissing at her collar bone as he dropped all his weight down and started fucking her like he was a dog humping his favorite stuffed animal.

Heather let out a slight wheeze at the weight, instinctively strengthening her core and arching her back to be able to catch her breath.

“ _Ahnn hnn hnn-_ ” Malone groaned as he releashed Heather’s hands from their pin and immediately drifted to her thighs, gripping and spreading her as far as she could go.

“ _Oh! Oh, shit! Fuck! Nnn-_ ”

Heather immediately scrambled for her clit, her entire front pulsing as she rubbed at herself, feeling her fingers get wetter and wetter with every _‘slick’_ and _‘slosh’_ tugged out of her pussy.

“ _Hmmmnn-_ ” Malone purred against her ear, his unchapped lips mouthing at Heather’s blush stained cheek. “Nnnm hmm hmm- ‘m gunna cum.”

Heather whined, writing against the bed and arching up and away from the shitty mattress.

“Touch yourself- _uuughhn, fuck- touch yourself!_ ”

Heather clenched her eyes shut and rubbed herself harder, _harder, fucking harder._

Malone was was fucking _pounding_ into her, his movements jostling the bed across the floor and ramming the bed frame against the wall again _and again and again_. She could feel his balls, wet and slick from all the lube getting pushed out of her, beating against her ass with every grind of cock into her cunt.

“O-oh oh fuuuuccckkkk-” Heather suddenly choked, her pussy tightening into a vice as the warmth of an orgasm ripped through her. Her head tilted back, her hips straining to meet Malone’s harsh thrusts as she rocked her hips, trying to draw and work through her peak. 

Malone ground himself into her, his grunts lowered into murmurs as his back tightened under her palms.

“Unngg hnn nnghhhh-” 

Warmth flooded into Heather, soaking her spent walls as she intermittently clenched around him.

Her eyes immediately shot open.

 _Fuck_. The fucking condom.

She immediately slapped a hand against the gangster’s fat head. 

Malone’s parted mouth, that had previously been taking steadying breaths, immediately clicked closed. Hi head whipped up, blue eyes open in confusion.

“Dumbass!” She cursed at him, kicking out her heeled legs in a weak attempt to get at him. It didn’t do much good, he was too thick and heavy for her to do anything but flail her legs uselessly at his sides. “You fuckin’ forgot the condom!”

Malone stared down at her in silence, his eyes still only the slightest bit wide to convey his surprise at her calling him out.

She was gunna fucking tell Big Daddy on him. Tell him all about the fuckass in the shitty tiger printed shirts who was cummin' inside of the girl’s bare pussies. 

Fuuuuckk. What if she ended up having to get herself fixed?

“Hmmpph!” She huffed and puffed, practically turning red in the face as Malone stared down at her in surprise. “Wipe that look off your face, asshole! What’re you gunna do if I end up gettin’ knocked up?”

Malone’s eyes widened for a moment and for a second she thought it was finally setting in for him, until he let out a snort. He immediately muffled the following chuckles but she could feel the rumbling from his chest.

Heather gaped up at him.

“Why you-! Up! Let me up!”

Malone obliged, pushing himself up and off the bed, his hands reaching for the packet of baby wipes on the side table and beginning to clean the residual jizz off his cock. Jizz that Heather could _feel_ setting like a weight in her pussy.

Oh fuck it. Heather pushed two fingers into herself, grunting in annoyance as she curved her fingers to start scraping man spunk out of her. 

She could feel Malone’s eyes on her. 

She could also hear him moving around the room, doing this or that- she didn’t care, too focused on her task. She only looked up when Malone stretched a hand out to her.

She glared up at him, eyes narrowed.

“The hell’s that?”

“Payment to...to take care of the problem.”

Although he started his words with a smirk, Malone’s curved lips disappeared into a more awkward expression. 

Heather glanced down at the fifty being offered to her. 

“Pill’s fifty-five _plus tax._ ”

That was a lie. The clinic three bus stops away that serviced underprivileged women like the girls at the club gave them out for ten.

Malone raised a brow, but pulled another bill out of his pocket.

Heather happily accepted the solid hundred, tucking them into her bra as Malone turned to leave. 

His hand reached for the knob, pausing just as he made to open the door.

“...You should take the rest of the night off.”

Heather wanted snark back, wanted to push herself up and shakily make her way back down to the floor. But she was _sore_. Malone may as well have blown her back out given the building throb she could feel starting to develop.

Still, she couldn’t let him leave thinking he could give her orders. She already got enough of men telling her shit in her daily life.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Malone inched his head back towards her, shooting her a small smirk before leaving.

Heather watched him leave before flopping onto her back. A spring immediately dug into her spine.

At least she wouldn’t have to see him again.

-

She saw him again. She sucked his cock and let him eat her out four weeks later and then let him take her bare pussied again nine and ten weeks later.

He held her down and stared clear blue eyes down into her brown as he worked his cock into her well fucked cunt.

He was the second client she’d had that night and she knew he could feel it in the slackness of her pussywalls around him. He grunted things against her mouth, his body shaking as he chased his orgasm and she locked her ankles around him to feel him grind into her again.

Matches Malone, or ‘Matchy’ as she’d taken to calling him after the third time he’d shown up at the club without approaching her, was the closest thing to a real regular that Heather got.

She tightened her hold around his shoulders as he started grunting, shoving his cock _deep_ and spilling his release into her.

Ah another easy hundred.

She panted softly against his pecs, getting moans choked out of her when he reached between them and started palming at her clit, his thick fingers working _magic_ on her and having her follow him soon after.

“ _Ahnnn-_ ” She tilted her head back, feeling her blonde locks spill over her shoulders and onto the bed. She mewled as she rode through her orgasm, working her hips up against Matchy’s hands.

“ _Hahh hah ah-ah_.”

Heather let her body go slack, her muscles losing their tension as she squirmed against the bed, working to get comfortable. Matchy always knew to let himself out anyway. She let her eyes start to slip closed.

The bed shifted, Matchy’s weight moving around and disappearing for a moment. She could feel herself drifting, consciousness beginning to fade. 

Heather felt breath hit her cheeks and a warm hand cup her cheek for a moment before disappearing.

Heh. Sentimental.

\----

Tim snapped awake on the drive back to the manor. He was dressed in a warm corduroy sweater and sweatpants. There was an ache all along his back and thighs, but he could feel lidocaine patches littering his body. There was even a heat pack on the seat that was soothing Tim’s sore asshole.

Oh wow- Heather had really gone all out. She’d really worked Tim’s body over the last few months, he could feel it in his muscles. Muscles he’d need to retone and get back into patrol worthy shape. Agh the woes of espionage. 

Tim wormed his way into the manor, slipping into the kitchen and pawing through the fridge to soothe his growling stomach. He was elbow deep into the swiss chard and tomatoes, trying pull out what looked like a dish of lasagne when he heard footsteps wander into the kitchen.

“Tim!”

Tim had approximately three seconds to curl the lasagne tray to his chest before Dick wrapped his arms around him, tucking Tim’s face close to his chest.

“It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Tim’s response was mumbled into Dick’s old highschool letterman, his mouth catching on the zipper as Dick’s hands stroked and patted at his back in greeting.

“Tim.” 

Tim managed to pull his head enough out of Dick’s grip to be able to glance over his shoulder, spotting Bruce in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Bruce!” Tim grinned, puttering on his feet and pushing his lasagne onto the counter. Dick let him out of his arms in favor of picking the foil off the top and brushing behind Tim to turn on the oven for him.

Tim’s entire backside ached something fierce but he managed to hide it enough to make his way over to Bruce.

“I finished my surveillance early and passed along the signal to the GCPD- I even have the files ready for the Commissioner-”

Bruce was staring down at Tim, his eyes locked on his form. For a moment Bruce looked like he was going to say something, his jaw tensing before his eyes flickered up and away from Tim.

“What have you managed to gather?”

Bruce began wandering over to one of the bar stools, pulling one out and patting another beside him.

Tim eagerly joined him- he was so ready to leave the cover op behind, his entire body was aching for a warm room and soft bed. Food too.

“Everything.” Tim chimed, eager in that way he always was when reporting back on his solo cases. “I planted bugs all over Big Daddy’s office and got every single one of his meetings on tape.”

That had been what really pushed the need for this mission to be a deep cover op. Bugs could only record for so long before the battery ran out, so they needed changing- frequent changing if you wanted crisp audio.

“ _Big Daddy?_ ” Dick asked, the slightest curl to his lips as he leant against the counter, his head tilted in that way that told Tim he was being teased.

He flushed, cheeks heating like a sky on New Year’s. 

“It’s what he wanted all the girls to call him!” Tim replied hotly. 

Dick tilted his head further in question.

“Yeah but you were just a busboy weren’t you Timmy?”

Tim opened his mouth to reply.

“Dick, let’s not aggravate him after just coming back from a long mission.” Bruce shot the other man a pointed look.

Dick immediately frowned and Tim could practically feel his mood drop with the action. He fiddled his fingers on the counter and glanced behind Dick at the timer on top of the oven.

He almost forgot how often the two of them went at it without a buffer between them. That was usually Tim, what with both Alfred and Barbara having long proclaimed neutral ground.

And Tim had been gone for the last three months, no wonder he hadn’t spotted Alfred around. The older man was probably off cleaning some rarely used wing or off at the grocery store to get some reprieve from the clear tension between the two of them.

Tim shifted in his seat and winced when he tightened the wrong muscles and was flooded with an achy tenderness.

Dick must’ve spotted his slight flinch because his narrowed eyes on Bruce immediately turned to concerned on Tim.

“Sorry.” Tim offered, shifting carefully. “I’m just really tired.”

An understatement.

Dick’s brow immediately softened, his blue eyes filling with sympathy.

“Why don’t you head on up to your room.” Bruce instructed, his heavy hand patting Tim’s head and jostling it like a bobble head. 

“Yeah, Tim.” Dick agreed. “We’ll bring your dinner up later, okay?”

“Yes. And we won’t tell Alfred about you eating in your room.” 

Tim let a smile creep across his face and softly pushed himself up and off the barstool. He held back a creeping yawn and made his way up the stairs with a mumbled thanks. 

By the time he hit his bed (his _soft_ , _cushioned_ bed with downy feather pillows) he was out like a light.

\----

Tim woke to movement at the end of his bed, his eyes shifting open with a barely audible whine. He managed to rub the crust out of his eyes enough to blearily sit up and push his bangs out of the way.

“Bruce?” He asked drowsily, mind still half asleep. 

Bruce was situated tensely at the end of his bed, hunched over and gripping his knees tightly.

“Tim.” 

Tim sat up, pushing up to lean against the headboard and sit silently in wait as Bruce gathered himself. 

“Tim.” Bruce repeated, softer this time. “The mission- the... _Heather_.”

The way Bruce emphasized her name made him feel like it was all supposed to be self explanatory.

Tim frowned slightly, his brows furrowing as he tried thinking of what she had to do with anything. The mission was done and as far as Tim could tell- it was done cleanly and with no major complications.

“What about her?” He asked, shifting on to his knees to give his sore butt a break, he should’ve slept on his stomach. As soft as his mattress was it did his back no favors. 

Maybe if he pleaded, Dick would be willing to give him one of those deep tissue massages he used to do to ease Tim’s muscles when he was still training him in acrobatics. 

Bruce lifted his head up, turning to stare at Tim with an indiscernible emotion.

“Matches.” 

Tim felt a shock of something shoot down his spine. 

“Yeah? He was one of Heather’s regulars but I don’t think he ever had a meeting with Big Daddy.”

Something flashed in Bruce’s eyes when Tim said the word ‘regulars’ but he wasn’t fast enough to catch the full thing.

“Tim.” Bruce repeated and Tim frowned because he’d been saying Tim’s name a lot and not much else. Tim knew Bruce was a man of few words and Tim was good at interpreting what he was given but Bruce couldn’t actually believe that Tim could read his mind.

“Tim, Matches Malone is one of my criminal aliases. You were seeing _me_.”

Tim frowned. Well he knew _that._

“I know.” Tim still offered slowly, in case Bruce somehow forgot that he’d briefed Tim on all his old cases, including ones where Matches was pulled out. “And I didn’t see you, I just got back.”

Tim made sure to add that, his forehead creasing in confusion. He’d been away for the last three months, surely Bruce must’ve realized that.

Bruce’s frown deepened.

“Tim. _I paid you for sex._ ”

Part of Tim wanted to recoil at the frankness, but the part of Tim that had lingering tendrils of Heather kept him from doing it.

“No you didn’t.” Tim immediately denied. 

“Tim-”

“You paid _Heather_ for sex.” 

Or at least Tim hoped he did, you couldn’t just run out on a prostitute like that and especially not one like Heather who could hold a grudge like nobody’s business. She’d talk smack about Matches to other girls for years, or would’ve if he hadn’t slipped her all those fifties after each session. 

And on that note-

“Also what happened to all your lectures about safe sex and condom use?” Tim asked, frowning and feeling somewhat indignant because he’d gotten The Talk a grand total of _three times_. Once from his school health class, another from his dad when he got his first girlfriend, and again from Bruce when Tim started running rooftops with Steph.

Bruce stared at him. Tim met his gaze with a frown, the last of his sleepiness fading away as he crawled closer to Bruce’s occupied end of the bed.

“You can’t just have unprotected sex like that, expecailly not with prostitutes Bruce.”

Bruce continued staring at him for a moment longer before he opened his mouth.

“Did you...did Heather have sex with anyone else without a condom?”

Tim huffed. 

“No, just Matches. Apparently he was kinda a douche to her about it.”

He says it pointedly because he could still recall how the second time around Matches had made a grumble of wanting to fuck his girl raw, how he could cover the cost of any potential consequences. 

It’s why Heather had let him and only him get away with it. She knew he was good for it and she pocketed an extra hundred each night along with tips and her cut of the client fee.

Heather, while not the most popular girl at the club, had managed to build up quite a stack of money. The women’s shelter would be very happy with the incoming donation Tim was going to make using Heather’s wages.

“I...Matches apologizes for being so...presumptuous.” 

Tim shrugged. 

“Heather only cared about his money.”

“How candid.”

Tim grinned, his socked feet fluttering off the edge of the bed. Bruce pushed himself up, the lasagne tray he’d been blocking with his body finally visible. Tim crawled towards it, settling down on his stomach and picking up the provided fork.

Bruce was at the door, still glancing over his shoulder at Tim.

Tim peeled off the foil from the tray, sticking his fork into the cheesy layers. 

“Bruce, do you _want_ me?”

Tim tilted his head slightly, shoving meat sauce and noodles into his mouth as Bruce’s hand froze on the doorknob.

Did he want Tim? Scrawny, bony Tim. No tiddies, no hips, or waist Tim? 

Tim could see why people liked Heather. She had pretty hair and a pretty face made prettier by makeup. She had decent sized boobs and nice hips to hold onto. Her butt was soft and she smelled like buttercream frosting lotion.

Tim finished chewing and Bruce finished turning the doorknob.

He left, as Tim dug his fork in for another bite, without answering the question.

\----

Tim rarely did group undercover operations. Normally, he liked working in groups and collaboratively. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did if he didn’t.

But there were just some things that he was better at solo.

Cass seemed to agree with that sentiment too. Out of everyone, she liked undercover operations the least, especially when paired with Tim.

Normally she loved Tim. But she’d made it clear that she didn’t like it when he’d take the backseat or step aside for someone else. 

Tim thinks it’s because Alvin had said something rude to her at one point and Cass hadn’t held back from hitting him. Which Tim fully thinks the other boy deserved, but he’d had to deal with the throbbing jaw when he came back.

She did have a soft spot for Caroline. Apparently Cass liked resting her head against Caroline’s boobs when the other girl stitched her up and gently chided her on a reckless move or that she was ‘still just a student’ and she’d ‘catch hell from my attending’ if he caught her treating people outside of where she could be supervised.

“But still want Tim.” Cass would murmur to him each time after a mission. “Like Tim most.”

Tim would always smile and hug her back just as tight as she did.

Dick liked the showmanship of it, the artistry. Really Dick just liked anything fascinating or cool. A vestige of his time growing up as a performer which is what Tim’s compartmentalization was. It was like one of Zatanna’s magic tricks at her shows or the circus he grew up in. Dick liked teasing and poking at Tim whenever he was gone, eager to hear one of his profiles behave out of character for Tim ( or rather, in character for them). His favorite ‘trick’ was getting Tim to curse. 

Especially since Tim didn’t do it too often. Dick had found it adorable when Tim first became Robin and how he’d cringed at works like ‘fuck and ‘shit’ or ‘bitch’. 

Now if Dick was lucky enough to pull Nicky or even Alvin on a mission he’d be called every name under the sun and be absolutely gleeful about it.

His eagerness to mess with Tim when in a profile came to a halt when he barged in on Tim working in a strip club. Or rather, Sunshine was working.

Honestly, Tim thought it had less to do with the fact that Dick ended up paying for a lap dance as a joke and then getting surprised when he got exactly that.

And more to do with the fact that Sunshine was a redhead. She wore bright red lipstick and baby blue eyeshadow with sharp black eyeliner. Her hair was short and curled outward in a way that it bounced along with her tits when she walked in her lace teddy.

She was hot. 

She had to be if she was going to get into the lap of the Columbian businessman that was looking to export pure heroin directly into Gotham’s harbor.

It was just unfortunate that that criminal happened to overlap with Dick in terms of taste in women almost exactly.

Dick avoided Tim for a while after the incident. Probably too embarrassed at the fact that he’d actually gotten hard when Tim had ground down on his cock.

As if that was the furthest Tim had ever gone with an ally while undercover. 

But people reacted differently to Tim’s profiles.

He could recall the flush on Kon’s face the first time he’d met Caroline. He hadn’t stopped staring at her chest the whole time and hadn’t even bothered to hide it.

Babs had once called his specialty an act of a genius mind and frankensteinish creation.

Tim supposed he would just take it as a compliment. 

Dinah didn’t like it. It went without saying. 

Jason was of the opinion that Tim was a fake in just about everything he was and did. Plus neither of them ever worked close enough or in the same territory to ever cross paths in a case. Privately, Tim always thought that Nicky and Jason would get along swimmingly. He was, afterall, created with the other boy in mind.

Damian closely aligned with Jason in opinion.

Bruce. Bruce was something else.

Tim wasn’t sure how it evolved the way it did. Maybe it had been back when Tim had just come off of Nicky. Or back at some point when Bruce had spent time with Heather. Maybe it had even been the night Tim came back, when he’d been in his room about to dig into a lasagne and Bruce had come in like a man seeking penance. 

That should’ve been the first sign. One of them had to have felt the shift in the air between them. Maybe if Alfred hadn’t been on his nightly grocery run. Maybe if Dick hadn’t decided to let Tim sleep and left the job of delivering the lasagne tray to Bruce.

Maybe.

Either way it didn’t change the fact that Bruce supervised Tim closely on his solo missions. That he especially kept a close eye on Tim’s honeypots. Even though _he_ was the one who would assign them to Tim.

They didn’t always lead to sex.

If Heather was involved, Matches would inevitably pop up at some point or another, lube, a hardon, and a hundred dollar bill in hand. Tim thought it was because Bruce had a fondness for blondes.

When Sunshine first popped up, Matches had muscled into the grubby club for a dance. He’d had a stiffy the whole time and been absolutely shameless about it. 

He’d also acquiesced when Sunshine had, in no uncertain terms, informed him that she was a dancer- not a prostitute. At least he’d taken note when Tim told Bruce that Heather thought Matches was a douchebag. 

It’s a while before any of Tim’s profiles has sex with Bruce Wayne. Matches goes because Matches is a scumbag that can be seen in a seedy club or brothel or on the corner picking up girls in a car with tinted windows. 

Bruce Wayne cannot. 

But then Bruce runs into a case where he needs a date- one where a civilian can’t be put at risk. So the job falls to Tim. Tim and Georgiana Davis.

Brucie was a playboy in his youth and a father in his maturity. But that didn’t mean that Brucie wasn’t blatantly horny for his new piece. 

Georgiana was much the same, horny and younger. Because culture dictated that Bruce go for someone half his age. So the guests politely looked away when Brucie started pulling his usual tricks of pulling at his date’s dress and pushing straps off of her shoulders.

So no one blinked twice when the pair left the ballroom of the venue for somewhere more private. In reality they were going to a coat closet, not to fuck, but to change into their respective Batman and Red Robin suits. 

Or they should have. Instead, Brucie slipped his hand under Georgiana’s dress and between her legs to play with her pussy and tongue her mouth. 

And Georgiana, young and always eager for risky sex slid along with it willingly. She didn't even protest when Bruce started fucking into her bare cunt without a condom.

Like Tim said, risky. 

So Tim came to, hips aching and asshole dripping with cum. It was a pain to change into Red Robin and he could feel the pull of his lower back muscles when he kicked in the face of one of the goons planning to take the venue full of rich people hostage.

Batman and Red Robin finished their job and changed back into Georgiana and Brucie. Only Brucie was ready and eager for round two. 

So Georgiana spent two hours laid out on the floor of the coatroom getting eaten out and fucked until she was hoarse. All while the police were arriving, rounding up guests, and taking statements. 

An officer noticed the missing two guests from the invitation list and a few officers went searching for the missing couple. 

They found them. 

In the closet, with Georgiana on her front, makeup smeared, and hair messed up- getting fucked doggy style by Bruce Wayne. 

It was the talk of the social ring for weeks. While the frail and delicate society folk of Gotham were being threatened, Bruce Wayne was getting his dick wet in a coat room through the whole thing.

Logically, Tim knew that no one in the family would take any of the talk and rumors seriously. Not even Alfred who picked them up from the venue and took Georgiana’s appearance to be a result of circumstance. 

The house was empty when they arrived, Alfred retired to his room.

The mansion was large, echoes tended to fade, and Bruce had long since soundproofed and fortified his bedroom with a number of tricks.

Georgiana got the most exciting night of her life. She’d gotten fucked a third, a fourth, a fifth time- and part of her ended up wondering how someone as old as Brucie was able to keep it up.

She settled on Viagra as the answer and leaned back into a bed worth more than her entire bank account to get fingered and fucked to a billionaire’s content. 

Tim woke up sore and stuffed full of cum like a Thanksgiving day turkey. He waddled to his room on unsteady feet and took a long bath.

Tim rubbed tiger balm into his hips and lower back until he stank of it and headed down to the cave to make his report.

Bruce followed him down a while later and worked beside him silently.

Bruce had never made an inappropriate move on Tim. He hed never touched him or tried to coerce him into anything. 

Tim knew this. 

He also knew that Bruce was very casual about working around Tim. He’d grip his hips to move him out of the way, huddle him in a certain manner when sparring. 

And there were the moments. Moments where he’d just stare at Tim for whatever reason.

Tim wasn't sure what they were or how they got there.

But it wasn't like it was entirely their fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i half considered making this longer and having there be a part where tim and bruce's dynamic and "relationship" gets exposed but i figured that might be too long  
> edit: I have decided to add a second chapter of exactly that (edit on the edit: and a third because the second got too long and i didn't want to disrupt the rhythem)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of this chapter occur in a non-linear format. It's for the tension✨

Life on a farm was a lot more difficult than Tim had given it any credit to. When Kon would talk about getting up at _‘the break of dawn’_ for chores- Tim didn’t think he was _actually serious._

A chicken pecked at Tim’s exposed toes and he resisted the urge to sigh and instead sprinkled the feed further away from him.

“Awww~” Kon cooed beside him, far too awake for so early in the morning, “Ciao Bella likes you!”

Tim grimaced and scrunched his crusty eyes up, feeling the dried drool on his chin crack.

“This sucks.” 

Kon did a little jig as he picked up a plump hen and held her in the crook of his arms like a baby.

“It’s not that bad- I got used to life with Ma and Pa pretty quick-”

“I wish I was back in Gotham.”

Kon’s wide grin immediately slid away and Tim couldn’t help the stab of guilt that poked his gut at the expression. Still, Tim couldn’t find it in him to apologize.

But he still threw the feed down a little harsher, watching it slop down on the floor of the chicken coop.

The soft pattering of little feet plucking at the grains and bits of corn filled the burst of silence between them. Tim could feel Kon’s gaze boring holes into the side of his head. It was with the same intensity he had when using his X-ray vision. 

Hell, he might’ve been using it _anyway_ because Tim could remember the incredibly intense stare he’d leveled at him when Clark first flew Tim over to the farm despite all his protests and arguing. 

“Clark called yesterday.” Kon finally broke, his grey eyes drifting down to the ground with an air of discomfort. Tim appreciated that. The heads up and the clearly not asking questions or extending the conversation beyond that point even though Tim could tell he wanted too.

Superboy was curious, curious by nature down to his very existence. He wanted to know everything and never wanted to be out of the loop for anything. 

There was no doubt he wanted to ask questions- wanted to know how Tim was, what was going on-what was up with Nightwing and Gotham? Why were Superman and Batman fighting? What did Tim have to do with it?

If Tim were a better man he’d tell him. If Tim were a braver man he’d tell him.

If it were just a few weeks ago- Tim would’ve. He would’ve openly admitted it, spilled his guts and everything. 

But time was fickle and experience told Tim that he probably shouldn’t do that.

\----

Tim wasn’t sure why Red Hood was edging closer to his territory. 

Hacking into his feed and doing a daytime scan of Crime Alley hadn’t indicated he had anything big going on. The Bowery was quiet, and the docks were business as usual when not being used to import guns, humans, or drugs.

Red Hood’s interest or attention wasn’t exactly something that Tim was looking to draw- especially given their history. It didn’t spell out good things. Specifically, it didn’t spell out good things for _him_.

Tim was put on bed rest when Jason caught a little bird by its wings.

It’s why Tim was hesitant to do his usual run for information among the escorts of Gotham. Mostly because a lot of the time it tended to land him in the heart of Jason’s territory. But Tim was always careful, he cleaned up for himself and left everything exactly the way he found out. 

Heather wouldn’t have stuck her neck out anyway- too many years of experience heightened her self preservation.

Still, Tim installed an alert beacon to the seam of her purse nonetheless. He spent the night fighting with his sewing machine and seam ripper to get into an easy to access place.

If anyone gave Heather trouble, if _Jason_ did- all she’d need to do is squeeze the handle and she’d have Bat at her back in no time flat.

Maybe that had been Tim’s first mistake.

\----

Heather didn’t like the streets. Too dirty and too cold. The rain ruined her makeup.

She preferred the sugar baby life, being a rich man’s pretty kept thing. It was just her luck that all her daddies were in lock up or upstate.

Couldn’t a girl catch a break? The John’s of Gotham were a different breed- grabby and rough. They squeezed her too tight and more often than not tended to pull weird shit. Or crazy shit. Or weird and crazy shit. Those were the worst.

She’s listening to Giselle go on about her man with half an ear, mansion this, and speedboat that, Falcone here and- hold on a sec.

“Ugh, I know you didn’t just say _Falcone-_ ” Heather cut her off, nose scrunching in barely concealed annoyance. Falcone. Ew. Ew to the _max_.

“What?” Giselle asked, hazel eyes peeking up at Heather as she leaned against a streetlight. “Falcone, _what_?”

The name is like catnip and Heather could see the ears and heads of the other girls on the block perking up. A slow night equals a prime night for gossip and storytelling, mostly about freaky johns and shitty boyfriends.

And it looked like Heather was setting the ball rolling.

“Falcone, family full of freaks is what-” Heather breaks out, blonde brows furrowing as she shifted her weight on her heels. “So I used to do parties in the diamond district, yeah?”

Heather could feel the angel cake in front of her lean in close, eyes wide in interest- and yeah she could see what made a Falcone catch an interest.

“Uhuh-” Giselle nodded, her face bobbing as she hung onto every word coming out of Heather’s mouth. She could see the other girls converging closer, until they were all practically huddled together like a high school football team.

She could see their grimaces as she started in on how one of Falcone’s nephews had a fucking _shit_ kink. She sympathized with them, if she knew what she was going into, then the jewelry she got out of it almost hadn’t been worth it. Not that it mattered- it’d been long pawned off so she could make rent and keep her apartment anyway.

Heather’s listening intently as they each go around the circle like they’re at fucking church camp- my man got caught in a drug bust and I had to get pissed on for groceries, I had a guy ask to screw me while he told me about his fuckin’ little league game, I sucked cock while he combed my hair like I was a fuckin’ barbie-

It goes on for awhile and Heather can’t help but feel an itch when the girls mention recent stuff, giving the younger ones advice to stay out of this part of town or skip this street because of horror stories about having suddenly violent clients. 

Heather’s about ready to wrap up when she hears what sounds like a steel wire getting shot through a pipe cannon. Then she gets all of two seconds to back up when a heavy set figure lands on the sidewalk just beside their group.

She catches sight of a red helmet glinting in the streetlight and feels a shock of cold race down her spine. 

Red Hood. 

Heard of him but never seen him, certainly never dealt with him. But he’s kind to the kiddies and the girls. She shouldn’t be worried.

But how many times has a man proven her wrong?

“Evening, Ladies.” 

A two fingered salute follows and Heather can feel the nervous chittering of the girls around her because here’s a man, a man with guns and knives _and explosives_. What do they have? A few cans of pepper spray? Pen knives? Maybe a loose brick or two?

“Don’t worry ladies, I’m not here to hurtcha-” Red Hood soothes, a mechanized voice emerging from his helmet. The sound has something in Heather’s spine tingling.

The part of her that flashes lights and blasts ‘Danger! Danger!’ from a megaphone.

His words seem to pacify a lot of the girls.

“If anything, I’m here to help you ladies out-” He continues, thick soled boots taking a careful step forward.

Heather resists the urge to take one back. In retrospect, maybe she should’ve.

“I think that a _fox_ has worked itself into the henhouse- that’s all. Old McDonald needs to take care of his chicks after all-”

Heather frowns and bites back her words about how those two phrases didn’t go together. It doesn’t seem to matter because her slight movement has Red Hood’s white plated eyes shifting towards her.

“Ah, there you are.”

Heather blinks. She’s certain she does that much. 

But then she’s on the ground, landing on her side on the roof of some nearby building because she can hear the slightly elevated and panicked clucking of the other girls nearby but lower.

She makes it to her knees before a boot plants itself on her back and shoves her back down to the gravel with what seems like minimal effort.

“Well now there’s a familiar sight, ay Replacement?”

Heather’s knees are scraped and the boot on her back is heavy, trapping her, pinning her. She clenches her fists around the handle of her little purse- the one that was a gift from an old beau. 

A rough hand grabs at her shoulder and flips her over like she’s a pancake. She’s greeted by the sight of a hoodless Red Hood, a dominoed face grinning down at her.

“Sup.”

Heather shifts to her elbows, heavy breaths getting pushed out of her as a face inches closer to hers. His grin is so wide that she can probably count every one of his teeth.

The expression doesn’t drop the entire time he enunciates into her ear.

“Thought. I. Told. You. To. Stay. Out. Of. My. Territory.”

She shivers. She can feel the tingle of fear, the threat of his weight hanging over her like a guillotine.

She hasn’t felt this scared since Rizzo Maroni caught her deepthroating her husband and she started shooting at both of them.

“I-I-” She stutters, shoulders trembling like it was freezing. She swears a second more and her teeth were going to start chattering, goosebumps of fear bubbling up on her arms and thighs.

Red Hood grins wider like he’s having the time of his life. Like going around scaring the shit out of honest women trying to make a living was _fun or something._

“What? You think I can’t tell when rats are trying to muscle their way in?” He asks as he inches closer. Heather inches back.

“Thought I couldn’t ping the bugs in your suit to tell me about your little monthly trips to the street corners to data mine like the diligent little mole you are?” A head gets tilted at her in a way that tells her she’s being mocked.

For fucking _what_ , she has no idea.

“I gotta say, the disguise threw me off for a bit- you really do go all out dontcha?” 

A hand strikes forward and Heather flinches, her entire body clicking and expecting a hit. She opens her eyes after a moment of nothing and spots Hood fumbling with her purse.

Fuck. She’s only got a few twenties in there from the quick alley blow jobs she’s given but fuck they’re _hers_.

“H-Hey!” She reaches out a hand, starting forward only to get a kick to the chest for the attempt. 

She’s wheezing on her back when Hood finally gets the busted zipper open and spills her stuff out on the roof. Her money, a bus pass, a tube of lip gloss, mascara, a small bottle of lube, and condoms- along with a few of their empty wrappers.

“Well, haven’t _you_ been busy-” He mocks, pulling out a knife and shredding her purse in front of her. He pulls out the lining, turns it inside out and upside down, pulling apart the leather and separating it into pieces. 

He continues for a few more minutes, his grin turning into a grimace before throwing down the lumb of fabric to the floor.

“Alright, cough it up.”

“C-cough, wha-?”

“The fuckin bugs, Replacement! Whatever info or tips you have, hand em’ over!” It’s the first time the Red Hood has raised his voice at her and Heather immediately believes every horrible story she’s ever heard about him. 

She can’t repress the whimper and tears that push itself out of her at Red Hood looming over her, his lips pulled back into a snarl like he’s a rabid dog that got loose of his leash. 

She’s shaking. Shaking like a chihuahua in the winter and unable to hide it. Her eyes are blurry, filled with tears because telling off a John or beating off a shit client is one thing. The Red Hood? 

What the fuck is she supposed to do about that?

Apparently nothing, because a few moments later another dark figure descends on the rooftop. 

Heather’s not sure what they talk about, isn’t sure she wants to know with the sharp tone of words and the ring of hisses in her ears. Her head hurts, _hurts bad_ . It’s like someone’s putting ice on her head and leaving it there to induce a migraine- she can feel the ache down to her _jaw_. 

Armor coated arms pull her to her feet and she’s met with the sight of a stone faced Red Hood glaring at her. Her and-

Batman.

“You _didn’t_ need to be so violent.”

Holy shit _Batman_ is _defending_ her.

Red Hood's face twists and any amazement Heather feels immediately shrivels away.

“ _Violent_?! I barely fuckin’ touched him! It’s not my fault your fuckin’ bird can’t take a hit.”

Heather holds a hand to her bruised chest, her knees wet with blood and can’t help but feel something. Something at her pain being called nothing. It’s one thing to know that your pain is nothing- it’s another to hear it said _to your face._

“-eaving. _Now_.” Batman replies, jaw tight and thick with tension.

Red Hood grits his teeth, palms clenched at his side. Heather can see it in every line of his body that he would like nothing more than to tell Batman to shove it. She can also see how his feet are already point the other way, strides lengthening as he walks away from Batman- with her stuff in hand.

No. No. No.

“My stuff.” She bursts out before she can help it. 

Red Hood freezes at the edge of the roof, back to her.

“I-I w-want my stuff back.”

Red Hood inches his head back, head tilted at her as he slowly raises his hand clenched around Heather’s wrecked purse and money and-

“Mine.” She repeats feeling like a monosyllabic caveman. “I-I _earned_ it.-”

Fuckin’ knelt on the floor of Gotham’s shit and piss covered alley ways. Held a stranger’s cock in her mouth for it.

“I _earned_ it.” She repeats. “It’s mine.”

Red Hood stares at her. Stares at her with a new tension, a weird intensity that he hasn’t the entire time he was kicking at her and laughing. This feels different.

She doesn’t have time to contemplate it before her shit is getting dumped at her feet and the red masked vigilante grapples away.

\----

Tim snaps to attention on his scraped knees, periwinkle nails blinking up at him as he gathers up bills and a few tubes of makeup. The condom wrappers have been scattered to the wind, but the ones that remained were quickly stuffed into the pockets of Heather’s dress. 

Tim adjusted the choker around his throat, quickly checking on the bug he had fused to it’s back before letting out a slow breath. There was a dull ache in his ribs from Jason’s kick, but nothing he couldn’t deal with.

“Thanks for showing up so quickly.” Tim offers, turning to face a tense Batman standing on the other edge of the roof. 

Batman’s cowled eyes prevent Tim from reading into much of his expression but years of experience have taught Tim that the other man was not happy.

“He shouldn’t have been so rough with you.”

Tim shrugs, long used to the treatment Jason usually throws at him.

“She’s fine if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Tim goes back to stuffing bills into his bra. The lace of Heather’s push up always made his skin itch and her satin dress made him sweat like a pig- more than it ever did ever since he entered the later stages of puberty. 

Tim walks steadily back to Batman’s side, mindful of his height in heels. He wasn’t as good at walking in them as their owner was. 

Batman holds out a hand for the necklace and Tim rolls his eyes and hands it over. So much for reviewing the footage. Batman would only let him have the raw score back once he was done with it and that wouldn’t be for _weeks_.

“Looks like I’m done for the night.” Tim sighs. Whether he liked it or not he’d need to stay in for the night and then avoid Jason on patrol for the next few weeks until he cooled off again. There went his patrol route.

“Drop me off at my apartment, would you?”

“I’m not a cab service.”

“No. But you’re faster.” 

Bruce turns his head to face him and Tim can practically feel his eyes narrowing on his form.

“Use those twenties you _earned_ to catch a real ride home.”

Tim only has enough time to frown before he’s left alone on the roof and forced to make his way down via fire escape. At least he knew for sure where Jason got his asshole streak from. 

Maybe if Heather had hung around just _a little bit_ longer she probably could’ve coerced Batman into giving them a ride to her apartment- then at least he’d be just a few bus stops away from his. She already had the condoms on hand and a grateful heart. Offer a freebie or vigilante discount. Whatever.

But of course she bailed the second the coast was clear.

Tim sighs and makes his way over to the shaken group of girls across the street- hopefully one of them had a phone he could borrow and they’d dismiss his deeper voice as the result of being ‘shaken up’.

\----

“Hey Dickhead!”

Dick sighed and pushed off from his crouched position on his knees, knowing his chance to discreetly case the docks was now long gone.

“Hood.” He greeted, offering a wide smile and hoping he wouldn’t have to pull out the escrima stick he was already fingering. With Jason it was always a coin toss about whether there’d be a fight about getting out of his edge of Gotham or if he’d get let off with nothing but a few curses tossed his way.

It was just his luck that he had to stray closer to the pier right outside the Alley.

At least Tim was tucked away in his apartment and not out with him- then the outcome could only go one way once Jason saw him. 

At the sudden thought of the other boy, Dick winced. It wasn’t that he was _avoiding_ his baby brother- just….working through some stuff about himself. The wash of shame that crept up was swallowed up just as quickly as it came when Jason rolled to a stop in front of him.

“ _Heh_ , do I have to buy a goddamn billboard to keep you weasel’s outta the fuckin’ alley?” 

Although the tone is light and almost flippant, Dick can feel himself tense at the widened stance of the other vigilante in front of him. 

“Maybe put up a fuckin’ electric fence? That’d slow down the replacement at least-”

Dick frowned and tightened his grip around his escrima.

“What’d you do to him, Hood?” 

Dick could still recall the arm sling Tim was stuck wearing for weeks following his last bad cross with Jason. 

Jason scoffed, his helmet in his hand and showing off his wide grin as he crossed the warehouse to stand in front of Dick.

“Calm down big bird I just roughed the kid up a little, let him off with a warning ya know? I was real nice with him given I almost didn’t recognize ‘im.”

Dick frowned, lips tugging deeper and keeping his eyes locked on Jason’s still empty hands.

“How charitable of you.”

Jason shrugged.

“Well what can I say? Replacement makes a decent hooker.”

Dick winced despite himself, tempering down his cringe as he recalled the soft body that ground down on his cock. The hot red lips mouthing the dirty lyrics to a club song as she- _he_ rocked against Dick’s chest. The feeling of far too realistic breasts under his hands as Sunshin- _Tim_ held them to himself when he arched back while seated on his lap to show off the stretch of his spine.

Dick had gotten hard. 

It was a fact that had gotten him laughed at when he showed up at Barbara’s place with red cheeks and the sweaty brow of a swift escape from a strip club he wasn’t even supposed to have been in.

Shit happens, Dick got hard due to a visual and physical stimuli. That didn’t make it any less disturbing because that was Tim- his kid brother. Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered Dick as much if Tim had said something, sent a teasing text or something while he was on break but he’d been dead silent on Dick.

Dick knew Tim tended to get really into his own head when doing undercover ops- but the other boy also knew to toe the line with it.

Jason must take his reaction for something because he can practically _feel_ the eyes narrow on him.

The tone shift was almost immediate.

And Dick wasn’t sure where it came from. He’d been expecting harsh words or the quick flick of a gun pointed at his head.

Instead he got-

“God, the kids a little _creep_.”

Followed by the pull of a grapple to another building leaving Dick behind.

Dick watched his siloette get pulled further and further away with each passing second. Then the matter of Jason's words ‘Replacement’ and ‘hooker’ together had a tingle of something tickling at his head because Tim was supposed to be in for the night. 

Or at least, that’s what Bruce had told him.

A flash of baby blue nail polish in Dick’s head and he was shaking his head to clear the image away.

God, what a night.

\----

Tim knew he ran the majority of the honeypots in Gotham. Knew more often than not, they were the cases that Batman handed them off to him.

_It wasn’t a big deal._

It wasn’t any different from a stakeout or a kidnapping case. It was just...part of the job.

Tim got that. 

Bruce obviously did too. 

He didn’t get why no one else seemed to get that.

\----

Tim didn’t know when or why the other bats started digging into his old cases. 

All he had were the alerts on his laptop pinging about access codes entered by ‘Dick’ and ‘Cass’ opening files of his old cases, skimming through his reports. Logically, he knew it had to be them.

Their security measures were designed and hacker-tested by Oracle- if someone was in their system they wouldn’t go for old case files and they certainly wouldn’t be unskilled enough to set off the alerts connected to each of Tim’s devices.

But even then, the actions weren’t exactly worth anything more than a cursory curiosity. The same thing happened when Damian got his own access code and started skimming through all of Tim’s old cases- probably trying to find some fault with him, sniff out weaknesses like a dog searching for clues. That was probably even more likely. 

The little runt had probably swiped Dick’s codes to go digging again since Batman had told him to knock it off when he found out what the younger boy had been doing. The thought that he’d been able to pull a fast one on Cass though, that was where Tim’s theories fell short. 

And if it ended up being anything to worry about- Tim was sure that Dick would have his back and send him a text or something about what was going on.

\----

“What’s the kid like?”

Dick startled, the jolt jostling the soup bowl in his hands and spilling some cream of mushroom on his carpet.

“ _Jesus_ , Jason- what now?”

It was rare that anyone ever managed to sneak up on Dick, but in his defense he’d been bouncing between New York and Gotham- following a shipment of drugs he’d been tracking for weeks. Plus Jason had been unusually civil lately.

“What’s _who_ like?” Dick asked, dropping his bowl off on his coffee table and kneeling down to pat dry his carpet using his shirt- it’d go in the wash anyway along with the dish towels so what did it matter?

Jason made a nasal sound to tell Dick he was grossed out but whatever- it was Dick’s apartment he could do whatever he wanted and fuck what anyone else wanted.

“ _The_ kid.” Jason stressed. “T-the fuckin _replacement_ dickwad, who else?”

Dick quirked a brow before pushing himself up.

“Jason, c’mon you need to leave him alone you-”

“I haven’t fuckin seen him in at least a week, asshole! I’m just doin’.... I don’t know what’d you call it- a wellness check?”

Dick stopped, his brows furrowing deeper, a glimmer of concern bubbling in his chest.

“Wait. What? Why?”

Jason kicked a mud slicked boot up on Dick’s coffee table. A small brown puddle was at the base of his window and Dick would need to remind himself to reset his traps. And also get better traps. 

Dick tried to recall the last time Jason mentioned Tim.

“Jason. What happened ?”

Teal eyes glanced up at Dick between messy white bangs and Dick frowned deeper.

A loud sigh was pushed out of Jason’s mouth and Dick watched as the other boy scratched at a patch of stubble on his jaw- looks like he’d missed a spot while shaving.

“I don’t know, could be somethin’, could be nothing. If it’s nothin’ then I’ll beat the shit out of the little twink the next time I see him.”

“Jason-”

“But if it’s _something_.” Jason cut him off. 

A beat of silence passed between them and Dick became incredibly aware of the fact that he hadn’t turned his stove off yet.

“If it’s something you need to talk to him.”

\----

Tim didn’t like getting cornered, or called ‘into my office’. 

An intervention or whatever. Tim didn’t like them. He’d endured his fair share and he was not a fan.

It didn’t help that it was Barbara pulling the wool over his eyes. 

He’d been under the impression he was going to help her review the raw data for her monitoring system (something he’d begged and pleaded for her to let him) during an upgrade.

Instead he’s met with a circle of stone faced fellow Gotham vigilantes and no broken open CPU’s in sight.

“What?” Tim asked.

\----

“Barb I need a favor.”

Barbara glanced up at her screen, the load not even half-way done, before shifting her eyes to the man in front of her.

“Dick.” She greeted. 

Another figure slouched out the shadows from the open window they’d presumably come through and Barbara felt her brows shoot up.

“Jason.” She similarly greeted.

“Hey Barbie.”

Barbara quirked a brow at Dick, feeling her brows furrow when she saw his unmoving expression.

Oh. She knew that face. Good things didn’t happen when Dick pulled out that face.

“Can you pull up the transcript of Tim’s missions?”

\----

“I’m telling you, there’s no log of Tim having been out on a mission for that date- not for data, surveillance, nothing.”

“Well that’s a goddamn lie.” Jason replied.

“Bruce told me that Tim wasn’t on a mission that night.” Dick interrupted. “But Jason saw him.”

Barbara’s brows furrowed.

“We all know how Bruce can be, we’ve all _worked with him_.” She offered. “He’s never been very forthcoming with mission details or operations if he thinks it’s against the mission’s best interest- it isn’t crazy that he’d have Tim working a mission on the down low.”

“Well it is crazy if he’s having jailbait _pimp himself out._ ” Jason grunted, thick arms crossed across his chest.

“If he’s _what_?”

\-----

“There’s no way Bruce would approve that- the risks of getting compromised, STIs, _the consent-_ ”

“The kid had a puffy mouth, eighty dollars cash, some with residue, and empty condom wrappers when I shook him down.”

Barbara hesitated.

“Did you see it?”

Jason didn’t reply.

\----

“These are _all_ sex work missions?” Dick asked. Barbara didn’t look up at him to see what face he was making but she could see how tightly his hands were clenched against her desk.

If her hands weren’t so busy typing out search parameters for certain keywords that Tim may have used, her hands may be doing the same.

Jason was silent beside both of them, she hadn’t felt the air shift around him in a while- for a second she almost thought he’d left-

“Look up the oldest entry.” He asked, an odd tone to his voice. 

Barbara’s fingers continued typing even as she felt a jolt of hesitance swirl in her chest.

For a minute the only sound in her clocktower is the sound of her typing. It’s a sound she’s become used to- but this time the sound just feels...worse.

“Oldest entry is dated three years ago.” She reports even as her words have something disgusting settling in her gut. “One year after Tim became Robin.”

Dick throws the spare chair beside her at her wall, shattering a green stained-glass vase Dinah bought her at a garage sale.

\----

“Details. Details _now_ . Names. Dates. Locations. _Everything._ ” Dick hissed out. Jason could feel the other man trembling in barely concealed rage beside him.

Jason might do the same if he had it in him.

But there’s nothing. Just nothing.

 _Fuck_ he hasn’t felt this nothing in a long time.

There’s a part of Jason, the small and crushed part of him that still thought he was going to get his license on his sixteenth birthday, that is squirming with denial.

That there’s no way the old man knew. Not Bruce. Not his da-

“The mission files are redacted- I need your access codes for the cave.”

“You can’t get in from here?” Dick asked, his shoulders shaking as he gripped his palms to keep them still.

Barbie shook her head, gaze still cast down at her keyboard as she continued to type.

That was one thing Jason always admired about her, how she could keep a cool head even while shit was going down around her.

“I designed the system like a lock and key- and you’re not getting in without the key, not even me.”

\----

They have Cass on conference call from Hong Kong within the hour to get her access code when they find another layer of protection on the files. One not installed by Barbara.

The little boy in Jason’s head is a lot quieter now.

“It’s the two man rule,” Barbara explained. “From the Cold War, you need two authroized personnel present at all times for the entry process to work.”

In this case it’s Dick and Cass. Damian’s has restrictions on it that Barbara put in per Bruce’s request when he found out the boy was abusing the system- that had probably been when he’d installed the new rule.

Even if he didn’t Jason doubted Dickhead would want to involve his pseudo-son in investigating...whatever this was.

\----

“They’re all categorized as deep cover operations.” Barbara offered. They were all stuck waiting until the incomplete files finished buffering, Cass yawning on the other side of the call because she’d just gotten in from patrol. “But there’s something weird about them- look, they’re all written with Tim referring to himself in the third person ‘Heather did xyz, encountered this, and reengaged that.”

“Heather.” Jason perked up. “That’s the name he was going by that night. I managed to get it out the girls when I went back the next night, though it was like pulling teeth-must've shaken them up more than I meant to.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Barbara replied. “She’s one of Tim’s more rarely used aliases- usually he sticks to _‘Alvin Draper’_.”

Cass made an immediate face, her nose scrunching up in annoyance.

“Yuck.” She replied, spitting out her tongue. “Mean.”

“Tim?” Dick asked furrowing his brows.

Cass shook her head.

“Not Tim. Alvin mean. Rude. _Gross_.”

“They’re the same person aren’t they?”

“Not exactly.” Barbara replied, shifting her hands on her desk and nudging her keyboard. “Tim does use an intensified form of compartmentalization when undercover to get into his personas. That’s why his cases tend to go so smoothly- because he truly believes he is another person.”

“Not believes.” Cass interjected, dark eyes narrowed on the screen. Her mouth is tilted down slightly in displeasure. “ _Is_.”

\----

“We need to talk.” Dick started forward, his jaw locked with tension.

Bruce looked up from his computer, reading glasses low on his nose as he watched Dick enter his home office. 

The younger man’s hands were shoved into the pocket of his coat, boots still wet from the fresh snow outside.

“Of course.” Bruce replied, dropping his pen beside the mug of coffee he had at his side. His eldest was agitated, feet pacing back and forth on his oriental carpet, hands running through his hair in distress.

Bruce felt a frown tug at the corners of his mouth, his hands sitting interlocked in front of him as he stared at his oldest child, waiting out whatever was bothering him-

“Did you know?” Dick burst out. Blue eyes stared at Bruce from across the room. “Tell me you didn’t know.”

Bruce frowned, feeling his forehead crease as he ran through every possible scenario in his mind. 

“About Tim.” Dick continued.

Bruce felt a trickle of concern enter him at the mention of his middle child. Tim? Was something wrong with Tim? He hadn’t seemed different the last time Bruce saw him. He’d stopped by last Sunday like he did every week to eat dinner with Bruce and whoever else was home and take back the leftover desserts Alfred made back to his apartment.

Bruce parted his mouth to inquire, gather more information before coming to any reasonable conclusion-

“That Tim was letting himself… letting himself get _used_ by his targets to keep his cover- _did you know?_ ”

Bruce’s mouth slowly closed from where it was parted.

\----

“Is this supposed to be a surprise party or something?” Tim asked, sliding further into Barbara’s base of operations. “Because I don’t think I got the memo- it’s not even my birthday.”

“Tim.” Dick began tensely in front of him. “We need to talk.”

\----

 _“How could you fucking let this happen?”_ Dick asked pacing in front of Bruce’s desk, pacing like a caged lion. Bruce could feel the distress walfting off his oldest like it was practically tangible.

“How could you let this go on-”

“Dick-”

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me my baby brother was out there getting-g-getting fucking raped by strangers?!”

At his words Bruce practically reared back, his hands halting from where they were reaching for Dick.

\----

Tim raised a brow in question, his brow furrowing deeper as he scanned the forms of Barbara and Jason situated behind Dick- both of them equally as placid and tense as Dick.

Tim felt his shoulders begin to rise, tension stringing at the muscles of his back.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked, mouth feeling stiff as he examined the bareilly visible tremors of Dick’s shoulders.

\----

Dick was quiet. Dead quiet in a way he almost never was because Dick Grayson couldn’t stand being quiet, not even for a second.

Bruce didn’t take his eyes off him for a moment. 

“Don’t lie to me.” Dick started, tone grave as he glared at the floor, not letting Bruce see his eyes or his face. Not letting Bruce get a possible read on what he was feeling.

“I need the truth.”

Bruce felt the muscles in his throat tighten. He forcibly loosened them using the technique he learnt from high altitude mountain climbers to introduce plenty of air into his chest.

“Okay.”

\----

“I don’t understand.” Barbara murmured, fingers tapping at her top lip as she scanned through each unlocked file in front of her. “The reports are all here, along with the court transcripts, sentencing, and the current location of each of Tim’s targets but-”

“But what?” Jason asked from the armchair beside the water cooler. “Batcave’s files are the most up to date and complete of any criminal profiler in the world.”

Barbara pursed her lips, biting at a hangnail on her thumb. 

“Yeah but where’s the evidence archives?” She asked, turning to look at Dick who was glaring at her monitor with eyes so dark they were almost black.

\----

“Did you make him do it?”

Bruce stared at the crown of Dick’s head, watching the wave of loose strands as they trickled down to frame his eldest child’s face. He could still remember when Dick was young and new to the manor, the way he’d look down at his shiny new shoes and only let Bruce see the top of his head when he was especially nervous and agitated.

“No.”

Dick’s head inched up letting Bruce meet the full force of a heavy glower, eyes deepened with something like pain and hurt and-

“You fucking _liar_.”

\----

“His office computer.” 

Barbara looked up at Dick, fingers curling and uncurling at the shadowed expression on his face.

“It’s processing power is too weak to review any of the files on the batcomputer and it’s only a single screen so he can only look at one thing at a time.”

Barbara furrowed her brow. She knew _that_. When she’d done her updates on the cave’s systems she’d done Bruce the courtesy of outfitting his office computer with a faster internet speed and plugging him into a variety of streaming services (which he paid for of course). 

“Bruce is too paranoid to put anything like sensitive information on a _home computer_.” Barbara replied, almost offended on his behalf.

Dick smiled a humorless smile down at her.

“Just try. Please.”

\----

It takes seconds. Literal actual seconds to find the missing archives. 

The pages from reports, the audios, the videos.

Barbara clicks on the most recently uploaded link- a video file, what looks like bodycam footage from the GCPD.

The video is grainy and shaky in the way all body cam footage is. She can hear in the background, the familiar sound of police radios going off about ‘clear on the first floor’ and ‘clear on the second’.

The sound is soothing to her in the same way nursery rhymes are.

That evaporates when the next scene is police walking in on Bruce fucking a moaning woman on the floor of a coat closet. They both look up at the sound of the door opening.

Bruce with his patented Brucie smile of chagrin and the woman with wide blue eyes ( _familiar eyes_ ) of surprise.

Barbara almost wants to throw something now too.

\----

“All you perverts are the same.” 

Dick glared at Bruce like he was something _low_ , like he was something _disgusting_ -

“The home computer Bruce? Really? Though I guess I can’t fault you for that- every man in America keeps his porn on his desktop- easy access, right?”

Bruce felt something in his guts clench. Something like guilt, like hatred. Something he thought he’d scrubbed away years ago.

Dick’s mouth started curving up, his lips still pulling downward at the action like he was trying not to cry. An imitation of an imitation of a smile

“How long have you been fucking your son, Mr. Wayne.?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ending got long, just as I thought it would in the first chapter so I'll have to split it into two chapters. I've kept you all waiting long enough so have this for now, I hope it's enough and let me know what you think- theories, feelings, etc.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is more than the length of the entire fic so far i played myself. Hopefully this means the wait was worth it

Dick tried hard to reign himself in. But he felt like an egg with a cracked shell and all his custard and yolk was seeping out even as he tried desperately to fix it.

There was a part of him, a voice ringing in his ears that was telling him it wasn’t true. That it was a trap planted by an enemy- a ploy to split Gotham’s finest (but there was no way someone could have faked the amount of evidence so realistically, dodged all their security measures, and planted it).

But another part, a smaller part of Dick- a quieter part that hadn’t made much noise since he and Bruce reconciled- knew it was true. 

It pulled half remembered conversations and observations from his detective mind- things he pushed away in favor of something else.

Things like how in the Spring Bruce and Tim had gone undercover, Tim as Bruce’s date (Dick had made jokes when he’d first heard- _jokes_ ) to stop a would-be hostage situation of Gotham’s wealthiest. He recalled how the weeks following there’d been whispered rumors and hushed conversations about what _Brucie_ and his newest plaything had gotten up to during the whole debacle.

Dick had blown the whole thing off. All the peacocks and their huddled clucking about Bruce fucking in a coat closet. It wasn’t until it was right in his _face_ that it came roaring back to the front of his mind.

All to watch his baby brother in a skintight white dress, padded to give him hips and breasts- a blonde wig that swayed with the force of getting railed on Bruce’s bed. 

_The fucker had cameras set up in his room for this._

It was like a slideshow of horror specially catered to make Dick sick. The sharp video of them stumbling into Bruce’s room, of Bruce kissing and stroking at Tim, stripping and fucking him like he was just another woman.

Barbara stayed silent beside him, her fingers still clicking away at her monitors, green eyes pointedly avoiding each of the screens in front of her. She always had better control over herself than Dick ever did.

There was audio from bugs of Tim with clients in brothels, of him on street corners getting picked up. 

Some were separated from the rest in another file, presumably Bruce’s favorites. Those were the ones where ‘Heather’ was meeting up with her ‘Matchy Malone’. Dick felt sick, something in his stomach swirling in discomfort and disgust when he heard Tim’s voice murmuring about an ‘increase in the usual rate’.

 _Fuck, he paid him?_

Not only did Bruc- _he_ take advantage of Tim while he was undercover, but he _paid_ him- paid him like he was just another prostitute. Like it was something that could be swept under the rug, that could be hushed up.

“Dick.” Barbara murmured, hands shifting on her desk. “What do you want to do about this?”

_Kill him._

Is Dick’s instant thought because the _audacity_ , the fucking gall of Bruce to go out everynight and act like he’s the city’s protector- then to come home and do _this_ to one of his son’s, _to Dick’s brother._

“Dick?”

Dick’s teeth sank into his lip, hands shaking with the tension of that temper he always had trouble controlling- even when he was young. He needed- _fuck_ he needed someone, _someone else_ to tell him what to do- to help him. Someone who was there without Bruce- someone who wasn’t Bruce.

Fuck. He _needed-_

“Superman.”

\----

Tim thinks maybe he can get used to the Kent farm. It’s quieter- a lot quieter than Gotham. When Tim goes to sleep it’s to the sounds of crickets chirping and the distant sounds of the cows mooing. 

No traffic or loud stereos from neighbors, dogs barking or cars stalling.

Still it’s a big adjustment, especially since he hadn’t had time to grab his wallet, clothes, or any of his things. So he’s stuck sharing clothes with Kon which are all two sizes too big. 

There’s also no laptop to do WE work form or review any of his cases- he idly wondered if they were even getting _done_ without him present to do them.

Tim is flipping through one of Kon’s English class books because that’s all there is _to do_ when Kon heads off to Titan’s Tower for the weekend. He’s in the middle of Henry V, when Mrs. Kent knocks on the bedroom door with a gentle smile and a soft look in her eyes that makes Tim feel all warm inside.

“Tim? You have a visitor.”

\----

“Woah, woah, _woah-_ ” Tim’s hands were raised, lips tugged down into a frown. “Back up a bit, where is this coming from?”

“Tim.” Dick said slowly, shoulders tensed so tightly Tim would be surprised if he wasn’t sore when he finally let them relax. “It might not seem like it now, but this is for you.”

“Wow.” Tim murmured, unamused. “Where have I heard _that_ before?”

Dick’s jaw was tensed, the muscles working in what looked like frustration and Tim frowned harder. 

It’s not like Tim didn’t know that Dick had a temper- it was one of those well known but often forgotten secrets that was remembered the minute you were subjected to it. But Dick had never gone off on Tim before- he’d been short with Tim sometimes, when he asked too many questions, or when he was just in a bad mood. But Dick had never, _never_ actually gotten angry at Tim before.

“Tim.” Barbara began, her red brows taut against her forehead as she stared at him in a deeply probing gaze. The one she had when working some case and trying to find a new angle. Like there was something she had to _uncover_ about Tim.

Tim shifted his weight from foot to foot. Jason was in the background, lurking, and while that heightened Tim’s senses and had his hand over the utility belt pocket with his birdarangs the older boy also just...stood there.

Still, Tim couldn’t waste time on suspicions not when Dick was talking about taking Tim off duty. Not benching. Off duty. _Forcible retirement._

“Things have gotten..” Barbara paused, “We’ve learned some things and think it’s best if you step down- _for now._ ”

“If it’s that big then don’t you think _I_ should know about it?” Tim asked, fingers clenching against his cape. “You can’t just call me up and spring this on me! I run my own operation, I don’t actually _answer_ to any of you.”

That was the part that pissed Tim off the most. He lived alone, owned an apartment, worked a job, paid taxes, operated primarily out of his nest- and somehow, they all thought they could still gang up on him like when he was Robin.

“I’m not doing _anything_ until you tell me what’s up.”

Dick stepped forward, his domino shadowing most of his face as he inched closer to Tim.

“Tim, listen, you have to-”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything.” Tim spit back because _fuck Dick_ , he hasn’t spoken to Tim in weeks and the first time he does it’s to pull a fast one on him? To treat him like Tim isn’t a vigliante capable of holding his own?

“And you _can’t_ make me.”

Dick startled back. His head rearing back like Tim had struck him. Even with a domino on, Tim could still feel the wide eyed gaze of the older boy on him. His forehead was creased in the same way it always did when he was hurt.

Tim froze.

“Dic-”

“I wouldn’t _make you_ do anything!” Dick replied fiercely, his forehead creasing hotly. “I wouldn’t- I’m, I want-” Dick struggled, the veins in his neck growing more pronounced with every word choked out of him.

Tim hesitated.

“I just- I you’re- gnnhh _fuck_!”

Tim flinched, fingers tightening against his utility belt, warily eyeing the other vigilantes in front of him. Suspicion and concern dancing in his chest as Dick started pacing in front of him. 

Clearly whatever was going on was something big. Ra’s had been quiet for months and none of the other rogues had been making much noise beyond their usual bullshit. Anyone that Tim kept tabs on had been on relatively good behavior, or as good as they could get. 

If it was League or Titan’s business Tim would’ve heard it from the mouth of the horse himself but this- this looked more personal. 

If it was Gotham based then Bruce was definitely an orchestrator- the other man had the annoying habit of relegating tasks he didn’t want to do to everyone else, like _firing Tim._

It probably made sense to him too- Dick had already done it once so what was one more time?

 _Ohhh_ Tim was going to have _words_ with him about this. 

Pursing his lips, Tim began pulling up his comm link.

“I’m calling Batman-” Tim barely managed to finish his sentence before a hard hand wrapped around his wrist. If it hadn’t been for his leather gauntlet wrapped tightly around his hand it might’ve hurt. 

“ _No_.”

That didn’t stop Tim from shifting in discomfort.

“No- Batman, _he_ doesn’t get to talk to you-”

Tim began tugging slightly at the hand holding him, testing the restrain while subtly palming a birdarang. Just in case.

“ _-Not after what he’s done- Not after what he’s been doing-”_

“Dick!” Barbara called out from behind him. Tim couldn’t see her, Dick’s body blocking most of Tim’s view as Dick tightened his grip on Tim, sliding a hand up to his shoulder like he was steadying himself.

“Dick-” Tim protested.

“I’m sorry.” Dick murmured, mouth pressed nearly to Tim’s forehead. “I’m so sorry- I didn’t know, I-”

Tim laid a calming hand on Dick’s waist, digging his fingers into the material. It couldn’t be fear gas or pollen- not unless Barbara and Jason were dosed too. Plus Dick had been acting too lucid to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He, like many vigilantes, tended to abstain from anything they could develop a dependency on.

“-I was always in Bludhaven, I was trying to get away from his shadow and- and _I left you_ -”

“Dick.” Tim began slowly, voice steadying as he tried getting a better grip on the man. “Look, I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, but-”

“I left you.” Dick repeated like it was something awful, like he’d committed some grievous crime and was confessing to Tim. “I left you with him- I failed you. I failed Jason. I’ll probably fail Damian-”

“Woah!” Tim burst, startling back because where was this coming from? This lamentation of perceived failure like Dick hadn’t spent most of Tim’s tenure saving his ass when he bit off more than he could chew.

“I’m going to make it right.” Dick whispered lowly, words pressed to Tim’s cheek in a way that felt uncomfortably like a vow. Like Dick was about to do something drastic. Tim only had bad memories from a tone like that. 

“Make _what_ right?” Tim demanded.

Only bad things went down when he was left in the dark because someone decided to play into being a hero a little harder than usual. Tim hasn’t needed someone to save him from anything in a long time.

Dick lifted his head.

“Clark.”

That single word was like a signal. Tim nearly flinched in surprise when Superman stepped out of a shadowy corner of the clocktower like he was performing some Batman parody.

Tim wasn’t able to get another word in before he was getting picked up and flown out of the clock tower. Out of the state. Out of Gotham

\----

Bruce hadn’t been on the receiving end of Dick’s anger in a long time. They still had the occasional argument but the full spectrum of Dick’s resentment hadn’t been directed at him in a long time. 

Not since Tim-

“What?” Dick asked, mouth twitching, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Got nothing to say, Bruce?”

“Dick…” Bruce began, voice trailing off. His throat felt like it’d shrunk to the size of a straw. “Dick, listen-”

“Oh I _know_ you’re not going to stand there and try _to justify yourself!_ ” Dick broke out, voice reverberating through the office like a drum. Bruce held back a wince, ears straining for any possible approaching footsteps. Damian and Alfred were both home.

“Dick.” Bruce repeated, stepping forward and lifting his hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture. 

“No! Don’t touch me!” 

“ _Please_ ,” Bruce began, pleading. He hesitated for a moment before continuing in a lower voice. “Damian is in his room, Alfred is in the kitchen- not in front of them-”

“Oh so _now_ you’re trying to be father of the year?!”

“This doesn’t involve them-”

“Oh _the fuck_ it doesn’t!” Dick screamed back, face rearing in close like he was going to bite Bruce. “It absolutely involves them! Did Alfred know?! Was he- _was he in on it?_ ”

The very thought seemed to break Dick and Bruce watched as his eldest barely restrained from breaking down in tears at just the thought. 

Bruce also felt sickness flood him at the thought of Alfred knowing, shame flooding his system of the thought of Alfred knowing-

But no. He didn’t. Bruce made sure of that. He was better at hiding things from the butler than the older man would like to acknowledge. He wasn’t a teenager sneaking out of the house to cause problems in the world to soothe his own brokenness anymore.

Bruce could remember being fifteen and coming back to the manor, drunk off his ass from Mason Witworth’s father’s scotch. Alfred had found him stumbling up the stairs of a darkened manor with a brow raised in unamusement. 

_‘I will not ask where you’ve been Master Wayne as I fear you would refuse to tell me’_ Alfred had tutted as he helped Bruce into his pajamas like he was five.

 _‘But rest assured, the truth always comes out in the end.’_ He promised as he tucked Bruce into bed with a cup and full pitcher of water on his nightstand for the morning.

“No.” Bruce replied, voice lowered to nearly a murmur. “Alfred didn’t- _doesn’t_ know.”

Dick’s lip quivered for a moment. The same way it did when he was young and so full of emotion he was close to bursting. One of his canines bit into his lower lip, his fists clenched at his side and for a moment Bruce was absolutely certain the other boy was about to throw the first punch.

“ _God_ .” Dick hissed like a curse. “Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuckyou fuckyou _fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou-!_ ”

Bruce stood still, listening as Dick slowly ran out of breath, his cheeks reddening with effort, brows dipping into a deep furrow of anger and frustration.

“Do you have any idea of the _hell_ you’ve put _me_ , and _Barb, and Cass,_ and _Jason_ through these last few days- the _shit_ I had to sort through-”

Bruce stopped, shoulders freezing as an ice cold tension shot through his muscles like a million needles.

“What about Barbara, Cass, and Jason?”

“ _‘What about Barbara, Cass, and Jason?’_ “ Dick parroted back in that mocking way he knew positively infuriated Bruce. “Who do you _think_ helped me find out what you were doing?”

Bruce felt dread fill his system. 

Jason was already so estranged from him. He already despised Bruce so much, but this- _this_.

“Who else knows?” Bruce burst out, the anguish in his stomach at the thought of his second son almost making him ill.

Dick glared at him. Blue eyes dark with revulsion, like Bruce was asking to try and save his own skin- he wasn’t. _He wasn’t._

“Why don’t you ask _him_?”

It took a moment before Bruce registered where Dick was looking. The open window that lay behind Bruce’s desk. Bruce should’ve noticed it immediately, the cool breeze coming into the office the entire time.

Bruce turned, meeting the stern lines of Clark’s face, one of his palms gripping the leather head of Bruce’s chair so tight he was surprised it hadn’t already ripped.

 _‘The truth always comes out in the end.’_ Alfred’s voice rang in his head.

\----

Of all the people that would contact Tim since his exile from Gotham.

Well they hadn’t _said_ that’s what it’d been- but sequestering him away to Smallville against his wishes and keeping him in the dark about everything?

Seemed like exile to Tim.

“Hey Replacement.” Jason was more casually dressed than Tim had ever seen him. His suit and armor must have padded him to look at least fifty pounds heavier because the other boy was a lot _slimmer_ than Tim had thought him to be.

Tim shifted on the pillow cushioned wicker chair on the porch of the Kent house, a veil of unease settling in him.

Jason was a lot cooler, calmly stirring the ice in his glass to make a small whirlpool. Sitting silently in his own chair and gazing at the setting sun like he had all the time in the world.

“How you been?”

“Fine.” Tim replied shortly. 

Jason’s brow twitched- whether or was good or bad, Tim didn’t know. It was too quick for him to have been able to discern anything out of it.

Jason and him had a turbulent relationship compared to the rest of the family. One where it was more ’beat up and disregard’, ‘disregard and beat up.’

Because counter to the beliefs of the rest of the family- Tim could give as good as he got. Something that had earned him the reluctant respect of the other vigilante.

But Jason was still the last person Tim imagined would give a shit about him. Even if, by far, among the entire Batfamily, he had the most impartial ethics.

That still didn’t mean Tim wanted to interact with the other boy, let alone sit out on the porch and drink lemonade with him like he was Ma Kent gossiping with the neighbors.

“You ever read _Lolita_?” Jason asked suddenly, kicking his feet out to cross his ankles and slouch in his seat. All he needed was a coconut with an umbrella in it and he would’ve looked like he was on vacation.

Tim sighed, pushing his half empty glass onto the table between them.

“It’s a good read. Russian, ya know?”

“Jason-” Tim began

“But not a lot of people get it.” He continued like Tim hadn’t said anything. “And I think it’s because it’s written from the perspective of the monster.”

Tim goes silent

“You have this guy, right? This guy with a fucked up mind and urges and he finds this pretty little thing- and it’s _so pretty_ and _so nice,_ it’s practically on a platter for him so what does he do? 

Tim shifted in his seat, pressing his thighs closer together.

“He helps himself. Only he doesn’t _really_ see what he’s doin to the little girl and if he does, he doesn’t really care. Doesn’t see how she cries herself to sleep or the ways he’s messin’ her up. Only at the end when she’s fucked up and her life is in the trash does he see what he’s done to her”

Tim swallows, his throat suddenly thick with something. His fingers fidgeted, nails pinching at the lace doily on the table.

“But by then it’s too late.” Jason waved a hand in the air like was swatting away flies or making a point. “She fuckin’ dies but boo hoo for him, he loved her or whatever.”

Jason continued making his vague motions with his hand in the air, his eyes still locked like a target on Tim’s form.

“And you know the worst part of it? There are people who think it’s either a love story or porn. Heh, imagine that _._ ”

“What is the point of this?” Tim asked even though he’d sat through every mind numbing highschool english class and had basic critical thinking skills. He knew what Jason was trying to say- he just didn’t like it. 

Didn’t like the idea that he was some _manipulated victim_. 

That’s not what it was.

That’s not how it had been.

Jason didn’t even give him the dignity of a response.

\----  
The thing about Clark was that he had always been there for Dick. 

When he and Bruce had gone through their rough patch, the other man had gladly let Dick bum on his couch for weeks while he tried figuring things out. When Dick confided that he was thinking of dropping out of college Clark hadn’t judged or berated him- not like Bruce had.

Part of Dick had sometimes wondered if the older hero had let all of the things that Bruce never let slip, go because Dick wasn’t _really_ his kid. Wasn’t really his _responsibility_. 

But the minute Clark flew in through the clocktower’s windows, Dick pressed his face into his chest like when he was a teenager. Buff, strong arms instantly hugged back, pressing Dick close with just the right amount of pressure even though Dick had watched him shatter mountains with those hands. 

Clark's friendly smile of greeting slipped away the minute he felt Dick trembling in his arms like a chihuahua in the winter.

“Dick.” Clark began, mouth turned down in concern. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Hey Big Blue.” Jason greeted, from behind them accompanied by Barbara’s relentless typing. 

“Jason.” Clark nodded hesitantly. “Barbara.”

It took a moment for Dick to gather himself, to soothe away his teeth chattering nerves and the tremor of his hands. 

It took another few before he began to explain himself.

Feeling his dread grow as he watched Clark’s expression go from concerned to intent to skeptical to borderline disbelieving. Dick felt the pit in his stomach grow at the stern light in Clark’s eyes as he drank in every word that came out of Dick’s mouth.

Clark had to believe him _\- he had to_ . Dick couldn’t handle getting disappointed by _another_ parental figure, not so soon.

“Dick.” Clark began seriously, hands hovering over Dick’s shoulders like he did whenever he tried to make someone understand the gravity of a situation. “This is a very _serious_ accusation.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Dick asked, voice sharper than he meant. Dick’s temper had been flaring up more and more lately.

Clark frowned in response.

“I don’t mean to sound like I don’t believe you, Dick.” Clark insisted, fingers curling and uncurling. “It’s just. I’ve known Batman- Bruce a long time, I- _I know him._ ”

“Yeah, well you and everyone in the room Supes.” Jason gladly chimed in. Dick wouldn’t be surprised if the other boy was taking it better than everyone else, part of him couldn’t help but be jealous. Red Hood’s entire existence was dedicated to calling out Batman, pointing out his hypocrisy, his weakness, his flaws. 

Clark directed his frown to the other boy.

“Jason, I know you and Bruce have had your issues-”

“Clark.” Barbara cut him off, her chair turned to face them. “Here.”

A monitor was turned and pointed in their direction.

Out of some sense of self-preservation, Dick turned away. He didn’t want to look.

He turned his eyes to stare at Clark’s side profile as the muffled sounds of sheets and rocking filled the room. 

Barbara hadn’t needed to turn on the audio. Clark had super hearing, he would’ve heard it just fine if it was tuned low enough so they didn’t have to hear it.

But Dick knew better than anyone what she would do to try to prove a point. 

Dick watched the hesitance and reluctance on Clark’s face slowly fade away. Watched as the red apples of his cheeks turned sour. As the soft brow of his face turned stony.

Watched as his eyes filled with the same betrayed bitterness that sat in Dick’s guts.

\----

The guilt had nearly killed him in the beginning. 

Bruce hadn’t wandered into that brothel with the intent of doing what he did. 

He’d been _gathering information_ , popping in to check on Tim and making sure he was alright- their nightly check ins were always short, stilted messages and Tim was still new at being Robin. Bruce hadn’t wanted to lose him so soon.

It’s what he’d told himself over and over again.

At first he’d blamed the alcohol in his system, told himself that it had altered his reasoning. Then he told himself that he’d just been adapting to the situation, that too many questions would’ve been asked of him if he came back down to the club without having done _something_.

Neither of them held up when he came back again, weeks later. Again and again. Weeks of fucking Tim, of feeling his body twitch and spasm as he came on Matches’s cock. Of curling his fingers into a blonde wig as he fucked into his mouth. Of crouching between soft thighs and swallowing Tim down, parting his cheeks and fucking his tongue and fingers between them.

When the case had ended and Tim returned to the manor Bruce had been ready to prostrate himself. To admit to Tim what he had done and let him call the police on him, to hit him, yell at him- do whatever he needed to do. 

If Bruce were a better man, he would have turned himself into the commissioner the same night he laid his hands on Tim, on Heather. He hadn’t.

Instead he’d plugged into the bugs he planted in the room and listened to the soft snores of his protege. Listened to him working through the day and night, chatting with the other girls, arguing with their pimp Lawrence Vrek (or as Tim called him, ‘Big Daddy’). He’d palmed a shameful erection when Tim returned to the room with clients, listening to their stilted breaths and choked groans. 

The action had filled him with loathing, self-revulsion, and disgust. It still hadn’t been enough to get him to stop. To continually return to see Tim-Heather. To fuck him in a bed and against walls and to return to the manor and listen to the recordings. His hand pumping his hardened cock between his legs until he spilled a mess onto his stomach with the phantom memory of Tim touching him.

Then Tim had returned to the manor. Had adamantly denied Bruce’s actions, and as good of an actor as the young boy was- Bruce hadn’t been able to deny the glint of sickness in his eyes when Bruce had brought up paying him for services rendered. 

_“Bruce, do you want me?”_

The answer had been an immediate and forceful _no_. The thought of taking Tim, touching him the way Matches had sent a curl of something into Bruce’s gut. 

No, not Tim. 

Not Tim, who Bruce knew wanted a Star Wars Lego set for Christmas. Who ate with his elbows on the table to Alfred’s great distress. Who wore clothes that his mother still picked out for him.

No, not Tim- never Tim.

Bruce wasn’t a pedophile. 

He’d heard it a thousand times when he, a single man, adopted Dick Grayson. Then a thousand more when he adopted Jason Todd, a former Crime Alley occupant. 

He’d put away too many abusers, broken too many jaws, comforted too many victims. He wasn’t one of them.

Tim had been fifteen when he’d gone undercover that first time as Heather. 

_She_ had been twenty one and a college dropout from Illinois. _She_ genuinely enjoyed math because everyone was always impressed with her quick mental calculations and when _she_ was in middle school _she’d_ won her city wide spelling bee.

It was amazing how much about her Bruce knew through Matches. _She_ was built lightly with her thin limbs and big blonde hair that made her look like a bird of paradise- and _she_ was safe.

She was safe. She didn’t want anything from him (aside from the standard money). 

She wasn’t planning on slitting his throat while he slept. 

She didn’t work with him and get compromised by her feelings when he didn’t call her for two weeks because he was on a mission. 

She didn’t loot through his possessions and rob him, making him question whether she had just been using him and leaving him feeling like an empty, hollowed out sack. 

She didn’t drug and sleep with him to forcibly impregnate herself with a child he would know nothing about.

Because Tim would never do any of that stuff- so if he wouldn’t neither would _she_. 

Because Tim was, at his very root and core, a loyal partner.

 _Bruce’s_ partner.

\----

“Drake. I have come to retrieve you.” 

Tim quirked a brow. First Jason visited him and now Damian was busting him out. 

Good day.

Still the other boy was significantly smaller and apparently expected Tim’s 5’ 5” self to crawl out of an attic window to freedom. Plus Tim was still full from dinner. At least now he knew how Clark grew to be so big, kryptonian genes be damned- Ma Kent made sure her kids ate _good_.

“We shall return to Gotham and you will _fix_ this debacle.”

Well that’s all good and well for Tim.

A trip back to Gotham? Even if it’s with Damian?

Don’t mind if I do.

That thought dissipates the moment Damian leads him to one of Bruce’s more “subtle” cars (a black Mercedes) and tries to get in the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, no- fuck you on that, _I’m driving._ ”

\----

Normally Tim liked hitching a ride on the kryptonian express. 

It’d been a long time since he _didn’t_ enjoy himself. Mainly because back when Kon had been in his (bigger than usual) asshole phase he’d always jokingly pretend to drop Tim before swooping down to pick him back up once he was sufficiently freaked out.

Clark was bigger than Kon, in every conceivable way. His arms cradled Tim like he was a swaddled newborn, tucking him close to his chest and tilting his chin down to protect him from the friction burn of flying at high speed. He also knew just the right altitude to fly- something Kon was still figuring out.

Usually his signal to go lower was when Tim started gagging at the low oxygen in the atmosphere. 

Clark somehow knew the right point so Tim wouldn't starve for air- and also so his ears wouldn’t pop. Something he’d grown so used to, he’d instinctively tensed when Clark started ascending.

Tim would probably have been able to enjoy it.

If Clark’s eyes weren’t shadowed by a veil of indiscernible emotion, his jaw clenched like he was aching to chew on steel. 

Tim almost reconsidered swallowing back his protests. He’d seen people be on the other end of an angry Superman. 

Mostly Bruce, but he always came out relatively unscathed. 

Man he was _not_ going to be happy to know that the kryptonian had not only sauntered into Gotham but had basically kidnapped one of his sons. Even if it was at the request of Dick

“Superman-” Tim grunted, shifting slightly in his arms, hands wrapped automatically around his shoulders for support. “I- ungh- Clark, _look-_ ”

“Tim.” Superman cut him off. “I’m going to take you to Smallville-”

“Wait-”

“-Some things are going to go down soon and I think it would be better if you didn’t have to see them.”

“All due respect Clark, but I think _I_ can make that decision for myself-”

Superman’s hold on him tightened slightly. Not enough to hurt, but enough for Tim to notice.

“-I have to go into work tomorrow, Clark! I still need to finish my patrol!”

“We’ll take care of it.”

Tim made a little sound of annoyance and finally realised why Bruce called the other man as stubborn as a brick wall. 

“Look,” Tim began, bargaining, “I don’t know what Nightwing told you but-”

“He told me _enough_.” At that Superman frowned, deep wrinkles forming between his brow as he glared down like he wanted to start using his heat vision on the interstate below them.

Tim felt a glimmer resentment that had long cooled resettle in his chest. Dick had been the first Robin- the first sidekick. Everyone in the League had a soft spot for him.

Especially Clark. 

It made it so they took his words at face value, drinking in his information without double checking it for themselves.

It was what had directly worked against him when Tim had tried petitioning for support on his ‘Batman isn’t dead’ revelation. Clark had been the first one he’d gone to- but of course Dick had already called him.

Voicing his concern for Tim’s mental state, his worries.

Once Superman’s door had been shut the rest had all followed suit. Closing ranks.

Tim understood. If he’d been on the outside looking in he would’ve been as reluctant to believe himself too. 

That didn’t mean the raw cut of hurt that’d settled in him during all those months of searching the world by himself had gone away.

Maybe it was the combination of that and a hard day. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that Tim got ambushed. Or that Dick hadn’t been talking to him lately. 

Either way, Tim hadn’t been able to stop his mouth from filtering out a ghost of that pain.

“So _of course_ you believe him!” Tim shouted to be heard over the roar of the wind. “If Dick says something than it _must be true_ and I’m just his _crazy, attention seeking_ little brother-”

Superman looked down at Tim, eyes widened in honest surprise.

“I don’t think you’re crazy Tim.”

Tim blew a harsh sigh out of his nose.

“Did someone tell you that? Make you think that I wouldn’t believe you if you came to me for something?”

The words seemed to rankle Clark, his jaw tightening as he began glaring out to the distance.

Tim let out a low scoff. 

“Too late for that.”

He’d muttered it under his breath, but of course- super hearing. Tim really should’ve already learned his lesson from Kon.

The deeply hurt look that Clark gave him is enough for Tim to immediately feel bad for going off.

“I-I didn’t mean-”

“I’m sorry.”

Tim froze. 

Clark gazed down at Tim with remorseful eyes. Like Tim had just stabbed his puppy and was apologizing to _him_ for it. 

“If I ever made you feel like you couldn’t come to me for help or you did and I let you down- I’m sorry.”

Tim stared up at him. That was two apologies in an hour. Both startlingly similar in prose, framed to make it sound like Tim had been wronged in some way.

If this had been back when Tim pulled Bruce out of the time stream- it would’ve made sense. It would have been right.

But the heaviness that had lingered in the clocktower.

The way they had all looked at him.

“Clark.” Tim began, slowly. “What is this about.”

Clark hesitated. His shoulders tensed, his body freezing up for a split second before he refused to meet Tim’s gaze. 

It was a full minute of silence before the older hero began speaking.

\----

“My father is innocent.” 

Tim kept his eyes on the road, the wide green corn fields forming a ‘V’ on the road- an arrow pointing him forward. It was good _and_ convenient that there was really only one road in and out of Smallville.

“He is not a degenerate- he’s a good man.” Damian’s voice was insistent even with his little twig arms crossed over his chest. “I’ll not have his reputation and my inheritance stained by the likes of _you_.”

Oddly enough Tim felt comforted. Even as he was being insulted- here was one person that almost sort of recognized Tim as an autonomous being, capable of thought and rationale. Even if he was probably working his mind into cartwheels to pin everything on Tim. (Because it wasn’t _Tim’s_ fault- but it also wasn’t _Bruce’s_ fault because Bruce didn’t desire Tim, it wasn’t like that- _it wasn’t-_ )

“What, so you think I Monica Lewinsky'd him or something?” Tim asked, brow quirking as he inched the steering wheel left to make a turn onto the upcoming interstate. 

Fuck, he didn’t have any cash on him. Maybe Damian brought some for the toll booths?

“Please.” Damian scoffed, green eyes rolling in his skull. “Unlike you- she was an actual victim.”

Tim’s brows inched up and let out a small hum of acknowledgement. The ride back to Gotham falling to silence after the younger boy reaffirmed his distaste for Tim.

But that didn't stop the younger boy from occasionally staring at Tim’s form, gaze scrutinizing, like he was expecting to see some mark or brand that Bruce left on him. A calling card- like the ones Bruce left on all the criminals he beat down so everyone knew ‘Batman was Here’.

The other boy would be searching forever because there was nothing like that.

Not on Tim.

\----

“Mr. Wayne.” Clark nodded in greeting like he did when he was in his ‘reporter’ guise. 

“Clark.” Bruce returned, nodding hollowly in return. A pit settled in Bruce’s stomach, an ache radiating from his chest as the other man settled less than a foot in front of him.

The glower that Clark had leveled at Bruce was a far cry from the usual one given to him when the two were having their usual ideological differences. 

This wasn’t Clark angry because Bruce had secretly planned a secondary operation, undermining the League agreed upon plan. This wasn’t Clark angry because Bruce had snapped at someone harsher than he felt was right. Or angry because Bruce adamantly refused to bend or give any leeway on this or that.

No. None of those stares had ever been so cold.

“Clark-” Bruce began, feeling so off kilter and off balance he barely knew what he was supposed to say. “I-”

A hand rose so quickly to signal him to stop Bruce felt the sharp slap of a small gust hit his cheek. He was certain it was intentional.

“Stop.” Clark ordered, voice deep and bellowing in a way he didn’t frequently speak. “Don’t. Whatever it is _I don’t want to hear it._ ”

Bruce obediently fell quiet. Probably for the first time in his life. He knew how Clark could get when he was like this and Bruce was in his civilian outfit. 

Probably by design.

Clark halted for a moment, his eyes closing as his forehead furrowed in barely concealed agitation. His mouth opened for a moment before closing again, lips pursing before-

“If there was any justice in the world _you would be in jail-_ ”

\----

Part of Tim had half feared that driving into Gotham would be a challenge in and of itself. 

When he would lay awake in Kon’s bed, thinking of his return to Gotham, he’d imagined barbed wire and tornado alarms going off with search lights littering every apartment building.

Arriving in Gotham was nothing like that. Cruising off of the turnpike and Tim sliding across the Kane Bridge alongside every other car driving into the city for work. 

Damian was asleep in the passenger seat, head nestled against the window, and had been since Pennsylvania.

Gotham was just as he had left it. Smog riddled, beeping horns, and cursing drivers.

Tim lowered a window and was met with a whiff of an open manhole and the sound of construction.

It was good to be home.

\----

“I don’t know- I don’t know _what the hell_ goes through your head half the time, but _this-_ ”

Bruce stood silent. There wasn’t anything he could say or anything he could do that wouldn’t make Clark want less than to destroy him where he stood.

“How- how could you?!” Clark broke, blue eyes flashing red. “Tim is your son! He’s _a child._ ”

At that Bruce tensed. There had always been a part of him, a small, quiet part that never failed to bring that fact up to Bruce whenever he was in one of his worser states.

“Tim hasn’t been a child since he took on the Robin mantle.”

Clark glared.

\----

The drive to Wayne manor was always noticeably free of traffic. Mainly because Bruce owned most of the land it rested on. Even when Tim had lived as his neighbor, he hadn’t occupied the same acreage. 

He’d been situated on the neighboring Crystal Hill- the name which leant itself to his oftly used alias of Caroline.

Damian began slowly waking up just as Tim drove past the gates, carefully backing up into a parking spot beside Bruce’s other cars.

Just as he was turning off the ignition, Tim frowned.

“Wait. Where’s Alfred’s car?” Tim asked, eyeing the empty spot where the vehicle usually sat. Alfred rarely ever drove it, preferring to let Bruce’s Christmas gift rest beside the rest of the collection.

“Pennyworth has departed.” Domain grouched, small hands rubbing at his crusty eyes. Tim would offer him a wet wipe if he didn’t half worry Damian would bite him.

It took a moment before the words sank in.

“What?” Tim breathed. 

Damian frowned at him, lips turning down in a sneer. 

“A few days ago, Pennyworth requested a vacation and Father, the gracious master he is, granted it.”

Tim frowned.

“Did he say when he would be back?” Tim asked.

Damian huffed in annoyance, unclipping his seatbelt.

“No. he failed to specify the duration of his holiday- one of the many things you _will fix_ now that I have brought you back.”

\----

“ _Don’t_ ” Clark warned dangerously. “ _Don’t you dare._ ”

Bruce felt his throat fill with tension a pulsating ache growing from behind his eyes, a desperation screaming in his chest at how _it wasn’t what they thought-_

“Let me tell you straight out so you understand- the only reason, I repeat, _the only reason_ I am holding myself back is because Tim fought for you-”

“Tim.” Bruce breathed, spine straightening because _Tim Tim Tim-_

“Where is he?” Bruce asked, strangely out of breath to the point that his voice verged on the territory of strangled. 

\----

The manor was dusty, that was the first thing Tim noticed. 

The air was thick with the scent of it.

Then again it was an old house and Alfred, without fail, would always be somewhere in some wing of the manor airing out rooms or dusting antiques.

At least Tim finally understood why.

Damian was at his back babbling in his usual demanding little voice, occasionally raising his tone as Tim’s feet led him to the familiar office down the hall that he could find in his sleep.

The door was open- like always and Tim stepped in without hesitation.

\----

“Away.” Dick snapped sharply behind him. Bruce inched his head back and watched as his eldest’s shoulders raised in offense, his face screwed like he couldn’t believe Bruce would inquire about one of his children-

“Far away from here _and you._ ”

“Dick-”

“We thought it would be in his best interest if he weren’t here to see what was going to happen.” Clark interrupted. A sharp cut in his voice.

At that Bruce couldn’t help but tense, every neuron in his body firing, the impending weight of his inaction settling in. 

Batman would never have been caught off guard. Batman wouldn’t have been unaware of the confrontation that Bruce was facing.

Batman wasn’t the one responsible for what was happening. Bruce was. This was all Bruce and the result of his actions.

\----

“You look horrible.” Tim couldn’t help but comment, nose scrunching up slightly at the sight of the weary form seated at the mahogany desk.

Bruce really did. His hair was unkempt, face grey and unshaven. Tim could spot his dark circles and heavy bags from across the room. He looked every inch the aged, beaten down vigilante.

Tim knew that Bruce took great effort to hide that he wasn’t as worn down as he really was. That his knees didn’t click when he stood up or that his muscles didn’t freeze up when he stood still for too long.

“Tch.” Damian scoffed behind him, shoving Tim forward hard enough to make him stumble the rest of the way into the room. A barely muffled curse at the other boy and Damian was stepping around him, head raised imperiously.

“Father,” He greeted, nodding at Bruce who’s brows furrowed at them. Eyes hazy in a way that made Tim’s gaze narrow in scrutiny. “Drake has returned to rescind his baseless allegations against your person and restore your reput-”

“You’re drunk.” Tim cut him off, eyes narrowing further as he took a subtle deep breath, trying to catch the lingering scent of anything that may have been poured or spilled. 

Bruce was a fan of all the classics: brandy, scotch, bourbon. If you’d buy it for your Grandfather’s retirement party- Bruce liked it. 

Unless he was looking to get fucked up. Then it was vodka. 

Tim could recall combing through Bruce’s room and office alongside Alfred when he’d first gotten the job as Robin. He recalled pulling piles of empty bottles out from under the bed and drawers. In one case he’d stumbled across a half filled flask of _Wolfschmidt_ in the shower where the soap would be.

Any half thought out words, questions, or concerns that Tim had brewed in the back of his mind while in the car or in Smallville immediately flew out the window because fuck no- _fuck no fuck no-_

“Are you serious?” Tim asked, voice every bit as harsh as his face when he started forward, hands reaching for the desk drawers. “I’m gone for a few weeks and you decided to get _boozed_?”

No- fuck no. Bruce didn’t get to do this- didn’t get to pull this shit after all the years of effort and work he’d put in. All the effort and work _Tim_ had put in. The tensely rejected pamphlets for AA meetings that Tim had tucked into Bruce’s utility belt when they first started working together. The pages upon pages of resources and guides that Tim printed out on his school’s library printer (that he got into trouble for when caught and only escaped a detention and phone call home when he said it was for a project).

“Tim…” Bruce murmured, hand reaching out for him as Tim ripped open the drawer and pulled out an empty bottle of _Belvedere_. “Tim I-”

“Bruce.” Tim sighed, exhaustion of a several hour long drive suddenly catching up with him. “Bruce no-”

“ _Tim_.”

Tim immediately felt a shock of something freeze him in place as he turned his head to face the open doors of Bruce’s office.

Dick was standing in the entrance, coat hanging off one shoulder as he stared into the room, at them, eyes furious.

\----

Clark’s face was unyielding, fists clenched at his side as he stared Bruce down.

A crawling sensation creeped up Bruce’s back, his fingers twitching at the sensation. Dread twisted his stomach into knots as a cutting icy feeling filled his veins. 

Bruce could feel his heartbeat pulsing in his ears and throat-and he was certain Clark could hear it too. No matter the stoic expression he was projecting he was certain Clark knew exactly how uneasy Bruce felt.

“So.” Bruce began slowly, voice almost strained from the tension in his vocal cords. “Am I to assume that this confrontation was for me to turn myself in?”

At the thought no flood of panic or sickness washed over him. It was nothing like the white fear he saw in the faces of gangsters and criminals when they saw the flash of red and blue lights or the white knuckled fists he saw clenched during sentencing. 

Instead there was a strange blankness in him, an absence. Like the space where Bruce’s 

turmoil and worry about being punished for his actions was just gone.

A choked disbelieving laugh echoed behind Bruce.

“Are you fucking serious?” Dick asked, voice nearly startled. Bruce watched shaky hands run through long locks as his blue eyes locked onto the ground, face twisted into a grimace.

Bruce could see his teeth clench together, their grind almost audible as Dick forced out his next few words.

“How would that phone call go?” He asked, almost mocking. “Hello police? Yes, I’d like you to arrest Bruce Wayne for the sexual assault of a minor-”

Bruce flinched violently, a wad of cotton stretching his throat until it ached as Dick continued.

“Evidence? Yeah sure I’ve got loads of it! Recordings and videos of _the_ Bruce Wayne, only he looks completely different and calls himself Matches Malone-”

Bruce swallowed feeling a sick revelation fill him as his eldest continued, voice pitched so bitter Bruce could taste it.

“-soliciting and sleeping with prostitutes who _all_ happen to be my brother in disguise and are all, also _coincidentally_ , legally registered as 21 years old and up.”

Bruce felt his organs freeze, his blood pumping in his throat when Dick’s eyes slowly raised to meet his gaze again.

A glare so hateful Bruce felt nothing short of despicable. 

“You…” Dick began, mouth twisted, “You and _your fucking contingency plans._ ”

Bruce’s mouth parted, something like desperation filling his chest because no-no, he hadn’t planned it beforehand. He hadn’t kept those videos, those tapes on purpose he’d meant to delete them. He’d always meant to destroy them, _to stop-_

“Gotham is dependent on _you-_ on Batman.” Dick continued. “When you disappeared it didn’t take long for things to fall apart. _You made it that way_.”

Bruce began shaking his head, his lungs seizing, unable to get a breath or a word in or out.

“I- Dick-” Bruce stepped forward. Dick stepped back. The sharp shock of hurt was unlike anything Bruce had ever felt. “It wasn’t - _I wasn’t_ \- Something can still be done-”

_‘This city needs you just as much as you need it.’_

Bruce shoved the thought away.

“Please.” Clark broke in. Stepping between Bruce and Dick, blocking Bruce’s view of his eldest. “Even if we were to take this up to the top- with Gotham’s judicial system do you think you’ll get anything more than a slap on the wrist and public shaming?” 

Bruce tried desperately to ignore that fact slapping him in the face. The fact that everyone in Gotham knew he rubbed elbows with every high ranking officer and judge in the city. The fact that he donated millions to Gotham’s infrastructure every year and supplied all of its Science and Arts summer programs, scholarships, and job opportunities. 

No court would judge him fairly. No court would deliver an impartial sentence.

The media would do all the judging without him paying out to bury the story. Vicki Vale would drag him through fucking hell, would call him every printable name in existence-

“I’m a journalist Mr. Wayne.” Clark continued, blue eyes darkened with the heat of an unidentifiable emotion. “ You'll be in the tabloids, make headlines, and late night talk shows for _two weeks_ before some other major scandal replaces it- you remember Woody Allen?”

Bruce felt a hollow cold feeling fill him.

“I…” He trailed off, oddly disoriented. “I studied his films in college.” 

“How coincidental,” Clark replied dryly.

Bruce swallowed. His tongue felt like an old belt in his mouth, thick and hard to swallow around. Clark turned his back to him, Dick following suit- and Bruce, Bruce couldn’t let things just end like that. The part of him that demanded justice, that demanded punishment for wrongs committed was singing in his ears. 

“I’m going to step out of the League.” 

Clark stopped. 

“ _You_ are a founding member of the Justice League.” Clark began slowly, tone careful like he was giving a warning. “If you step down you think there won’t be questions?” Clark asked.

“If you step down you think we won’t be _more_ vulnerable to threats on and off of Earth? If you step down you think it _won’t_ split the League into factions filled with your supporters, questioning why you’re leaving and why we’re no longer on speaking terms?”

A burn of something filled Bruce. Like a blister inside of him had popped, leaving him exposed and skinned, hot hurt slicing through him.

“Clark-”

“Because make no mistake,” Clark immediately shut him down, “I have no wish or desire to see you any further unless _absolutely necessary._ ”

Clark turned around and Bruce could see his pupils dilated so completely the blue of his eyes were nothing but a thin ring around his iris.

“But the minute, _the minute_ you have outlived your worth you’re gone. Do you understand me? _You’re gone._ ”

\----

“Dick.” Tim said slowly, eyes locked onto his older brother’s haggard appearance. He looked almost as bad as Bruce.

“Clark called me.” Dick said, starting forward, eyes locked on Tim even as he slowed to a stop to grip a quietly staring Damian’s shoulder. Damian’s eyes were locked on the empty bottle in Tim’s hands. “He said that you left-”

“Did you expect me to stay there forever?!” Tim broke out, not feeling an ounce of regret at Dick’s tired expression. “You sent me away with no warning!”

“I was protecting you!” Dick broke, eyes burning as he raised his voice in a borderline yell. Damian flinched in surprise, eyes widening.

“Who asked you to?!” Tim fired back, weeks worth of anger and frustration finally boiling over.

\----

The weekly Justice League meeting was tense. There was a tension in the air pulled so taut it was almost palpable.

“Hey.” Green Lantern murmured lowly, inching closer to Flash. “What the fuck is going on?”

Flash’s hands were clenched tightly in front of him, his brows furrowed deeply in concern.

“I don’t know.” He whispered back. “Something happened between them last week but I have no clue what it was.”

Hal frowned, his mouth turned down in a mix of concern and apprehension as he watched the tensed forms of Batman and Superman sit across from each other as Hawkwoman read off their weekly progress and listed off reports of potential concern.

Her voice was smooth and unobstructed by the choking air of the room. But Hal could still see where her hands were clenching the podium, her fingers digging into the metal hard enough to leave small dents. 

Hal frowned harder. Spooky had been acting weird ever since he’d reached the Watchtower. Well weird _er_ than usual. 

He’d made none of his usual acerbic comments or pushed his way into the room with his bitchy attitude. Hal’s usual jabs and taunts had been met with a wall of silence, his only reply being the twitched muscles of a tensed lower jaw.

Muscles that had tightened further with the arrival of Superman.

Hal knew that the two of them fought occasionally, had their spats and cat fights the same way all the big boys trying to measure their dicks did. 

This was different. There was an air of...hostility to it that hadn’t been there before.

And Hal had no idea who it was coming from. 

Superman’s form was notably more relaxed but Hal could sense something was off, could get the inkling that if something sparked between them then the resident boy scout wouldn’t hesitate to choke slam Batman to the floor of the meeting room.

The very thought had Hal tensing in a weird anticipation like he had to be on his toes and ready to separate them if it came to it. A look around the room and it looked like many of the other Leaguers felt the same way. 

Wonder Woman had a hand on the table and another on her lasso, her face creased in clear concern as her eyes kept bouncing between her two comrades.

Aquaman was frowning, his brows stuck in a deep pensive furrow as his arms crossed over his chest.

Captain Marvel was in sharp contrast to the rest of the room. His shoulders were hunched, eyes locked on the table like he was trying to make himself as small as possible despite his bulking form. Hal felt a strong urge to lay a comforting hand on the big guy like an older brother soothing a younger brother during one of mommy and daddy’s fights.

Usually the thought would have Hal holding back a laugh or a grin, fighting the urge to lean over to Green Arrow and make a snotty comment about just what the scene in front of him reminded him of.

The thickness of the room killed any humor Hal might’ve found at the situation.

\----

“So what happens?” Bruce broke out. Clark turned his back, cape swaying slightly as he stepped out the office doors. “Dick?”

Dick paused, back turned to Bruce. Bruce watched his muscles tighten, could see he was barely holding himself back from turning around to face Bruce.

“ _Nothing_.” Dick replied, voice thick. “Nothing fucking happens to you.” Dick continues with barely restrained anger. “Just know that I know.”

Bruce heard Dick swallow.

“That Clark, Jason, Cass, Barbara, and I all know what you fucking did.”

\----

Cassie frowned at Conner, matching his furrowed brow expression.

“Tim’s staying over with you?” She asked, parroting back his words. Conner nodded.

“Clark brought him over and said that something in Gotham had turned sour and he was going to be staying with us for awhile.”

Cassie’s frown deepened. Nightwing had sent her a message a few days ago requesting Red Robin be taken off the Teen Titans roster for the time being. She’d tried messaging Tim for hours with no response.

“Is he okay? Is he in some kind of trouble?” She asked, worry rising because it wouldn’t be the first time a hero was singled out by a group or someone, putting them in danger.

At her words Kon scowled, something deep and annoyed crossing his face.

“He won’t talk to me, _like at all._ ”

Cassie felt her expression mirror his, her feet shifting as she crossed her arms in front of her. 

“Do you think…” She began slowly. “Do you think this has to do with why Batman and Superman are fighting?” She asked, slightly cautious. Several heroes had noticed the increased tension between the two Justice Leaguers, the hostility and terse interactions between the two of them.

Diana had been the one to reach out to her, inquiring about any knowledge she may have about the situation given her connection to one of Gotham’s vigilantes. 

None of Gotham’s heroes were being forthcoming with the situation. While a few of them seemed to know circumstances, several others were in the dark.

Something that bothered the ones in the dark. 

Cassie had heard second hand about the epic argument that went down between Oracle and Black Canary. 

Whatever Oracle had told the other hero had made her go ballistic to the point that she couldn’t even be in the same room as Batman.

Conner’s mouth turned down further, expression sullen.

“If it is then Clark isn’t talking either he…” Conner paused for a moment his mouth opening and closing, expression unsure. “Cassie he, Clark was _really_ upset.” He emphasized.

Cassie felt ice cold dread fill her stomach.

“Whatever it was- it was really bad.”

\----

Dick stared at Tim, eyes dense with emotion. Flickering between flashes of anger, despair, sadness-

“Up.” Dick whispered quietly, voice almost echoing in the room. “Get up, we’re leaving and you’re getting away from _him_.”

Dick pointed a finger to a silent Bruce, whose head was tilted down towards the desk, shoulders tense. His dress shirt was rumpled and wrinkled, the buttons not lining up. Bruce’s hair was greasy, his face unshaved. Tim could see scattered paperwork from WE, half finished and sloppy. Bruce’s face was nearly gaunt and Tim had no idea how long ago Alfred had departed or when the older man had had a meal.

Tim glanced down at him a final time, before turning back to look at Dick who’s strict posture had a silent Damian tucked to his side.

“No.”

“Tim!” Dick yelled, despair lining every inch of his face. “Why can’t you see that you can’t be around him!”

“He needs me right now.” Tim argued, frowning. “Can’t you see that Bruce is relapsing?” Tim asked, shaking the glass bottle in his hand and slamming it down onto the desk.

“Alfred is gone and Bruce is just fucking _sitting_ here, downing vodka in his office- why aren’t you concerned?”

Dick’s face went blank and Tim immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“Don’t” Dick began. “Don’t you dare tell me I should be concerned about what Bruce Wayne does anymore.”

“Dick-”

“Bruce is an _adult_ .” Dick continued, unperturbed- expression unnervingly empty. “He is a _grown man_.”

Tim tensed, shoulder hiking up at the emphasis on the words.

“He knows right from wrong and he,” Dick continued, eyes somehow cold as ice and hot as coal, “ _can take care of himself._ ”

\----

Bruce knew completely that the confrontation in his office was not the end of it. 

Tim was off the grid somewhere, sequestered away by Dick and Clark to an unknown location- away from him.

They thought Tim needed to be _protected_ from him. 

They’d left his apartment abandoned, his position at WE vacant. Any calls or messages that Bruce had tried to send the other boy had been subsequently blocked before the communicator he was using was fried, practically unusable. Bruce was able to see the trademark of Barbara’s work.

It didn’t take long before Batman’s night work also started getting impacted. 

Without Barbara or Tim on comms, Alfred was back to his original role of support. Damian had seemed more than content at the thought of there being no ‘Drake’ for the time being when Bruce informed him they’d be expanding their patrol to pick up Tim’s territory.

Part of Bruce knew going in it would be a mistake. That Dick or Barbara had likely settled on some kind of plan of what to do with Tim’s route.

Or that maybe Tim had left them with a plan. The thought had lingered- that Tim had relocated willingly, had left Gotham- left Bruce.

Dick’s words, Clarks words had brought everything- everything that Bruce had buried deep inside of him roaring back. 

Bruce had struggled in the beginning, struggled to rationalize and compartmentalize the same way and with the ease that Tim was able to. 

For Bruce the switch always happened between Batman and Bruce. The other transitions weren’t as smooth. Batman wasn’t a civilian- couldn’t be one let alone pretend to be one so the circuit had to be rewired, with Bruce as the conductor. 

Batman faded to Bruce and then Bruce would fade into the necessary guise. Matches was a well used mask, one that Bruce could fall into with the familiarity. 

But he’d been thrown off that night- that first night with Heather. Matches had lost sight, lost focus and so had Bruce. They were supposed to be on the lookout for a busboy that looked too young to be working in such a seedy club, they were supposed to offer a job- see how well they could break in the new meat. 

Instead Matches had been met with a tight little thing in a slip dress and Batman...Batman had needed the mission’s parameters to be completed. 

When Bruce had clicked to the surface for a moment, just a second; when he’d tried connecting to Tim through Heather-

_‘Who the fuck is Tim?’_

Then Matches had come roaring back and...done his job. Then did it again and again. 

Bruce, half filled with horror and with guilt, would return to the manor every night- would review tapes and listen and feel disgust as he handled himself to the memory.

Mind racing with thoughts of Tim, with thoughts of Heather. But Tim, Tim had absolved him of it- had cleared him of any wrongdoing.

That didn’t mean that Bruce didn’t still struggle with the memory of Matches’s urges and actions.

When he and Tim would spar and Bruce would pin him and be swept by the memory of Heather gyrating on Matches’s cock. When Bruce would pick up Tim and move him out of the way, the feel of his hips under his palms, sending heat to his cock. Even moments where Bruce would catch himself watching Tim, staring at him and the movements of his limbs- trying to find traces of Heather.

That had been the extent of it. Bruce never dared to reach further- to overstep that boundary. 

Then Georgiana had come. Every bit as rich and reckless as every other wealthy Gothamite there was. She was a photocopy every other woman that Bruce had spent his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood around.

It was like she’d been made for him. Bruce had wanted to hold back, to resist.

But Brucie had been all too eager, all too excited at the prospect of a playmate. His fun always got cut short, extended only to parties and friendly games of golf or squash. 

And Tim. Tim was safe. Passed inspection by Batman himself which meant Brucie could help himself if he wanted to.

Bruce had known, had felt the eager energy building in him as he’d gotten ready for the Gala. Had spent several minutes in his bathroom talking himself in and out of tucking a few condoms into his suit pockets. 

In the end he’d decided against it- figuring the thought of unprotected sex would be enough of a deterrent for Brucie. 

It hadn’t. 

It hadn’t stopped Brucie at the Gala from shucking up Gerogiana’s dress.

And it hadn’t stopped Bruce from pumping his cock into Tim as Georgiana while she rode his dick, letting out little _‘unh unh unh’_ grunts later that night at the manor. 

It had been all squirmy passion and excitement with her. All of the enthusiasm of a baby socialite bagging her first big fish.

For Bruce, it was like he was the same as her. Another baby socialite, new to the world, and careless with alcohol and money like he was always supposed to be. 

That’s what it had always been. 

Being someone else- like Tim was. Slipping into the skin of another person like a chameleon.

All the risk with none of the consequences.

Bruce only had himself to blame.

\----

Dick waited at the base of the staircase, expression stormy after Tim had helped a drunk Bruce up to his room.

Damian was waiting alongside him, his arms crossed over his chest, the shadow of a scowl on his face. 

Tim took his time going down the steps, careful with each socked foot on the carpeted stairs until he was one step over Dick, staring down at him.

Dick was glaring up at him, emotions shifting like the channels of a television. Like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling towards Tim.

“You,” Dick began, jaw tight, “you can’t be around Bruce anymore- _it’s not safe._ ”

“Bruce has never hurt me.” Tim replied back, fierce indignance in his stomach because how could no one see it? Not Clark. Not Jason. Not Dick.

Dick’s feet shifted, his shoulders rising and falling like he was trying to physically work out his agitation.

“Tim, you know what grooming does to kids- you’ve seen-”

“I was _not_ groomed.” Offense filled his voice on top of the blanket of frustration of how now one was listening to him. So much for ‘counseling’ of the supposed victim.

Dick’s eyes shot up to meet his.

“Oh, so you _chose_ to have consensual sex with a man more than twice your age?”

Tim reared back, revulsion filling the back of his throat. 

The harsh lines of Dick’s face immediately disappeared, shame filled his expression.

“I-I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t-”

“I have _never_ had sex with Bruce.” Tim cut him off, feeling disgust swirl in his stomach at the thought. Sure maybe when he was young he’d had a boyhood crush on Bruce but he’d felt the same for Jason- for _Dick_ even. That’s what happened when you were young and admired someone to the extent that Tim had. Even then-

“Even if that were true,” Tim continued, cheeks flushing hotly, “Even if that were the case I...I don’t even know if I-” Tim cut off. “I don’t even know if _I like_ boys like that.”

Dick’s eyes closed, expression almost radiating pain.

“I know.” Dick began slowly like he was trying to hold control of himself. “I know that with the way you compartmentalize you’re better at separating yourself from your target but Tim-”

Dick looked up at him, expression serious.

“We have the recordings, the files- we know what Bruce did to you-”

“He didn’t do _anything_ to me-”

“Barbara and Dinah have been talking and Dinah believes that you used your compartmentalization to seal what happened to you away, that what you endured was so traumatizing that you-”

“Will you just listen!” Tim cut him off, hands clenched at his sides. 

Dick trailed off, falling silent.

Tim took a steadying breath, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt his blood rushing and pounding through his body.

“I,” Tim began, “have never had sex with anyone let alone _Bruce_ ,” He emphasized.

Dick’s lips pursed.

“I am put on the missions but I don’t run them- Bruce has never laid a hand on me, it was always Matches and he only ever bothered Heather and Sunshine, never me.”

Dick’s jaw clenched.

“What part of that don’t you understand?” Tim asked, desperation singing in his chest. “That Heather was the one Matches and Bruce did stuff with- _not me._ ”

Dick frowned, his brow severe as he stared down Tim.

“Cass mentioned something like this.” Dick started, voice low and almost inaudible. “But Tim, Heather is not a separate person she is _still_ you-”

Tim opened his mouth in protest.

“If Heather got stabbed, would you feel the pain?”

Tim’s mouth clicked closed, his mind going back to the bruised jaw he nursed days after Alvin had said something to piss off Cass enough that she’d hurt him.

“And even if you believe that it wasn’t you that was present at the moment it doesn’t change the fact that Bruce touched _you-_ that he continued to touch _you_ and take advantage of _you_ while you were on a mission.”

“I told you that Matches-”

“Is still Bruce Wayne,” Dick shut him down, eyes intense and fierce. “- you may be able to separate yourself into different people but Bruce most definitely does not.”

Tim frowned, mind scouring for Heather’s first encounter with her favorite client. How she brought him up to the room, how it had already been paid for by another patron-

“It wasn’t his fault.”

Dick frowned again.

“Tim-”

“It wasn’t!” Tim insisted, shifting his feet on the carpet and thinking of the four flights of stairs they’d had to climb. “Matches was in a meeting with one of Maroni’s enforcers who paid for the session- he hadn’t had a choice!”

Dick’s frown took on a darker edge, something simmering at the edges of it.

“So,” Dick began slowly, an edge to his voice. “Someone purchased a service and you were going to provide it, right?”

“Heather was,”Tim nodded. Dick hesitated for a moment before reluctantly acquiescing. 

“But if at any point- that person wanted the service to end. Could they?”

Tim frowned, thinking of Heather’s no refunds, no exceptions policy. He slowly nodded his head.

“Which means that Bruce could have pulled back at any time-”

Tim opened his mouth.

“-But he _chose_ not to.”

Tim breathed a steadying sigh out of his nose. What part of this could they not understand.

What part of _‘Mission’_ was so hard for them to understand.

“It was _for_ the mission, Dick.”

“And the lap dance you gave me,” Dick burst out, “was that part of the mission too?”

“Yes!” Tim shot back, taking the final step down and pressing his nose into Dick’s face in the way he knew the other man hated. “You paid Sunshine for a dance- she gave you a dance!”

Dick had been acting weird since that day, since that night he’d wandered into the club where Tim had gone undercover. 

“And if I’d wanted more?” Dick asked lowly.

Dick had walked into the club with a wide grin, a little jump in his step as he’d settled into a chair closest to the stage.

“If I’d wanted things to go further than they did that night?”

How he’d been positively gleaming when Sunshine had wandered onto the floor, how he’d waved her over like a kid excited to answer a question in school.

“Would you have let me?”

How Dick’s wide grin had creaked, had faded when Sunshine settled into his lap. How Dick’s shoulders had tensed, when a body gyrated against his, sliding down the length of it like he was one of the poles on stage.

Tim stared into Dick’s eyes, voice filled with certainty as he answered.

“If it was for the mission, yes.”

Dick closed his eyes. Pained.

\----

_‘The truth always comes out in the end.’_

Bruce swallowed thickly, feeling a painful wad in his throat as he watched Alfred load his bags into the trunk of his car.

“How…” Bruce cleared his throat at the sound of the crack in his voice, “How long do you believe you will be gone, Old Chum?”

Bruce tried for casual, familiar but it fell flat as Alfred kept his back turned to Bruce. He knew. He had to know what Bruce did- what he’d done.

Dick would never stoop so low as to tell Alfred, not when he knew how much he meant to Bruce. Dick was always too good, even to Bruce who he now truly and fully believed didn’t deserve it. 

It didn’t matter how Alfred had found out, only that he knew. Bruce had seen it in the lines of his face when he’d presented Bruce with the morning’s mail and newspaper.

Had seen the deep seated disappointment in his eyes as he’d gazed at Bruce. 

“I’m unsure, Master Wayne.” Alfred responded slowly, back still to Bruce. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve been on a tour.”

Bruce swallowed thickly. Damian was in the living room, just a few doors away and well within snooping range if he wanted to overhear.

“Well,” Bruce began, steadying himself as he stepped closer to Alfred, feeling pain flood his chest as the back of the older man in front of him tensed. “It’s good to hear you’re taking time for yourself old friend.”

He inched a hand forward, resting it on the elder’s back in a reassuring pat. Alfred stiffly nodded.

Bruce bit down on his lip and stepped back, giving the elder space.

Alfred was quiet for a moment, shoulders tensed for a moment more before he reached up and adjusted his flat cap hat. It was a cap that he’d had for decades, one that Bruce could recall seeing when he was still a young boy.

“I have left my emergency contact information with young Master Damian,” Alfred finished, starting forward towards the drivers side door. “Should he need anything I have instructed him to contact me.”

Bruce felt an ache fill him to the brim. _‘Not you’ ‘I didn’t leave the information with you-I don’t want to hear from you-’_

“Sounds good, Old Chum.” Bruce managed to get out, hoping he didn’t sound as choked as he felt. “I hope you have a good vacation and come back soon, alright?”

Alfred paused as he opened the door. Bruce could see his thin frame tremble slightly, the shake almost hidden by the large tweed coat he was wearing. For a moment Bruce thought he might respond to the departure. But the next moment Alfred slipped into the seat and eased the door shut. 

Bruce swallowed back a developing cry, stepping clear out of the way as Alfred slowly backed out of his rarely vacated parking spot. 

A moment later and the elder man was off and down the driveway. Bruce lasted up until Alfred was through the gates before the sting of tears forced him to blink.

\----

It took Bruce a while before he was able to get himself back together. Days spent waking up and taking on the jobs typically fulfilled by Alfred. Dropping off and picking up Damian. Writing the grocery list. Making meals, cleaning up after meals. 

Damian lasted two days of Bruce’s attempts at cooking before taking over the role himself with a quiet coup and none of his usual proclamations of superiority in the field.

For a few days the manor was quiet with just it’s two occupants. 

Bruce was in the greenhouse trimming the potted roses when Damian dropped off the morning’s mail on a nearby table.

Bruce didn't even look at the cards until another twenty minutes had passed.

Some were bills, most were catalogues, and one a subscription to an issue of one of the Gotham tabloids. In the middle was an innocuous white envelope, unmarked, and missing a stamp.

Bruce stared at it for a full minute before ripping the letter open.

For a while all Bruce could do was stare. Stare at the words printed at the top, mind incapable of processing them. He stood in the same position for a full minute before dropping the cards back on the table and walking back into the manor.

‘NOTICE OF PETITION TO TERMINATE PARENTAL RIGHTS CONCERNING DAMI…’

\----

Damian had made it a habit to keep constant check of the manor and all it’s going ons as well as its residences. His time in the League of Assassins had long since formed him to the habit.

So when he got the alert on his phone about a high speed projectile approaching the manor it was only by proxy of that habit that he checked in on all his monitoring systems around the manor. Including the one in his father’s office.

Damian had no love for Drake. The most he could muster was a barely disguised distaste towards the other boy coupled with justified resentment at him and his place in the family.

It was a dislike he shared with Todd towards the third Robin, and likely the only thing the two of them had in common.

So Damian was not in the habit of being charitable in his thoughts of the older boy. Still that hadn’t erased his simmering unease when Pennyworth had first begun to pack his bags. How when he’d picked Damian up from his classes one afternoon he’d swallowed his pride and made the detour to a drive thru that only he knew Damian loved.

“Master Damian,” Pennyworth had said slowly, hands tensed against the steering wheel as Damian shoved warm salted fries into his mouth, usual decorum gone. “I’m afraid I will be taking a short leave for awhile.”

“What are you on about Pennyworth?” Damian asked, half distracted as he tightened his thighs to keep the drink tucked between them from spilling. 

“I have requested some time off from Master Bruce and will not be able to care for you for a short time.”

At that Damian looked up, eyes locked onto the rearview mirror where he could see the top of Pennyworth’s head, his eyes locked on the road in front of him.

“What?” Damian asked, dropping the fry cup back into the oil stained paper bag resting on his backpack.

Pennyworth’s eyes flickered for a moment, his hands tightening on the wheel.

“I…” Pennyworth paused. “I have become aware of my blindness in this household.”

Damian frowned, shoulders tensed as he licked his suddenly dry lips. The lingering taste of oil and salt coated his tongue. 

Damian was not blind, he knew the going ons of the family better than they thought he did. He knew they held some convoluted idea that Damian should be restricted access to information simply because of his age.

“Is this because of Drake?” Damian asked, lips curling as he dug his fingers into the fabric of his school pants.

Pennyworth’s head tilted down, eyes disappearing from the rearview mirror.

“He is a liar.” Damian continued, anger and annoyance at their blindness leaking into his tone. “You cannot possibly believe that _my father_ -”

“Master Damian.” Pennyworth interrupted, voice as strict as it usually was when Damian had performed some misstep.

The drive the rest of the way to the manor was silent. Damian left his food untouched, stomach oddly queasy and appetite all but gone.

It’s a few days before Pennyworth is fully departed. Sheets pulled over the furniture in the servants quarters as the only token of his departure. That and a sheet of contact information left in his possession by the elder.

Damian watched him leave, step into the car garage with the lingering weight of elderly hands on his shoulders from the parting hug. It’d been the first token of familial affection the servant had ever given Damian. 

As Damian watched the car pull out and down the driveway from an upstairs window he was unable to explain the aching hurt that filled his throat.

From there it is worse. The house was quiet and occupied only by him and his father. 

Grayson called him everyday, speaking to him in low tones late into the night when Damian knew he was on patrol. There was urgency in his voice, his questions and investigations into his well being used to disguise the interrogation that it was

Grayson was a fool as always, sticking to the words of the poisonous snake that Drake was.

The only respite Damian had was that at least Drake had finally been driven away. 

Then Damian had found the mail. Had spotted the opened and abandoned document lying in the greenhouse where Damian had brought in the postage. 

He’d brought it up to his room, searching and reading up on the legal terms being laid out and some part of Damian just froze.

The familiar signature of Grayson and the lawyer he had in Bludhaven had brought all the late night calls Damian had flooding to the surface. Grayson’s continued invitations for Damian to visit him in Bludhaven, to meet him in Gotham- his staunch refusal to return to the manor.

Damian lingered within his room for a moment longer before leaving and hacking the code for the cabinet holding all of the car keys.

Damian had long known Drakes location, knew he was hiding away on the Kent farm like a coward and been more than content at the idea of him staying there but this-

Damian shakily climbed into the driver’s side, hands adjusting the seating to reach the pedals. If he started immediately he would be able to reach Smallville by nightfall. Had he any other option he would’ve opted for the Batplane but Damian’s codes were still suspended and frozen from when he’d tried gathering information on Red Robin.

Another wedge the older boy had driven between Damian and his father. 

Damian tightened his grip on the steering wheel and expertly backed out of the space, pressing down harder on the gas, imagining Drake’s face under his shoe.

\----

Tim was angry, glaring at Dick, his nails digging into the soft, worn cotton of one of Kon’s old band tees from where they were clenched at the hem.

Dick was taking steadying breaths, his eyes still glued shut like he couldn’t even look at Tim while-

“You never should’ve been Robin.” 

\----

Bruce wasn’t proud of how he coped. 

He knew it was something that had driven people away multiple times before.

Hard missions, tough times, particularly troubling cases had all caused divides between him and his allies before. All because Bruce couldn’t handle the weight of the world on him with the ease and stubborn nature he thought he could.

Batman was getting called out more often, some of the more parasitic criminals taking the opportunity to come out- sensing that something was wrong with Gotham’s vigilante’s.

Tim was still gone and Bruce couldn’t search for him without the risk of destroying what technology he had left.

Red Hood had a sudden upsurge of violence and Gordon was loading him up with additional cases.

Bruce wasn’t certain if he’d ever be able to approach Jason again without violence being the immediate mode of contact.

Nightwing was steadily absorbing more and more of the routes that Bruce usually patrolled. It wasn’t lost to him that it was likely part of a plan to eventually phase him out of Gotham- of taking the city from Bruce.

Then Alfred had left, citing a need for time. Bruce wasn’t sure when he would return or if he would. He was unable to bring himself to turn off the tracker he had installed in the car he’d gifted Alfred several Christmases ago.

The pang in his heart he’d felt at the sight of a letter from Dick’s Bludhaven attorney. Bruce knew it had been coming, had felt it deep in his gut at Dick’s last parting. At the muffled sound of Damian speaking to him over the phone when Bruce would silently slip past his room.

Bruce- Bruce was struggling. Batman made it easier, eased the burden by focusing on the mission. Even if he endured the heated glare of Superman at League meetings and ignored the whispers of the other heroes around him- all speculating about what he had done because of course it was Batman who did something.

All because Bruce was weak. Bruce had always been the weakest link. 

Standing by as his parents were slaughtered in front of him. As his son was beaten and tortured before being taken from him.

Weak. 

Weak. 

Weak.

Then he’d gotten in one night from patrol, bone weary and exhausted. He’d gone to Damian’s door, to peek in and check on him.

And he was gone. Bed empty, shoes missing.

All that was left was the torn open letter that Bruce had abandoned in the garden earlier that day. The one that had driven him to unlock the liquor cabinet he had in his office. The one that Tim had purchased the lock for years ago.

He hadn’t touched it. He’d wanted to but decided against it, sliding the door shut again.

But Damian knew. Damian had seen the letter. Had been present for Alfred’s departure. Had patrolled Red Robin’s territory with Bruce- knowing that he’d been plucked out of the city.

Dick was not disguising his hostility and Damian wasn’t stupid. He was sharp and brilliant and Bruce knew that if Damian dug deep enough- if he searched the same way he did months ago that got him punished by Bruce for his snooping.

Damian knew. There was no way he didn’t and he’d left.

Bruce was staring down into an open bottle of Polmos before he knew it.

Weak.

\----

Tim froze, his lungs freezing, breath caught in his throat.

“If I knew that this would happen I never would have let you-”

Tim felt a tremble travel from his shoulders to his arms, his body shivering like he’d just been dunked into the water of a frozen over lake.

Dick’s eyes eased open, the hollow skin of his face pulled tight over his expression. His eyes met Tim’s frozen ones.

“You got hurt.” Dick continued, voice low and toneless. “On my watch- on all our watches. You never should’ve had to do what you did because of the _mission_.”

Dick spit the last word out like it was disgusting, Like it was shit clinging to his tongue.

Tim’s mouth was moving, words forming on his lips as he curled his toes into the hardwood under his feet.

“Do you…”He began shakily. “Do you have any idea how many people I have saved?”

Dick’s eyes didn’t lose their sorrowful slant, blue eyes staring at Tim like he was some, some _charred up little-_

“-How many animals I’ve put away?” Tim continued, voice shaking in intensity, teeth clenched tight with every word. “The murders, rapists, stalkers, and _psychos_ I have stopped because of what I did- what I sacrificed.”

Tim was _not_ going to let Dick undermine that work. Was not going to let him frame it like Tim didn’t wake up every day fully believing that everything he had ever done for Gotham was worth it.

“No one got hurt.”

“ _You_ got hurt.” Dick whispered brokenly.

Tim thought of the nights he’d stumble back to his apartment, ankles blistered and bleeding from hours on heels. The bruising on his thighs and hips. He could remember the itch of lidocaine bandages, ice on his bruises,Tiger balm on his skin.

“I didn’t mind.”

“You should have.” Dick whispered, mouth twitching, lips trembling. “You never should’ve been put into the position where you had to make the decision to choose the case over yourself. We could’ve caught them another way.”

“It would’ve taken longer.” Tim shook his head. “Other people would’ve gotten hurt.”

“Fuck them.” Dick replied fiercely, eyes blazing. “Fuck all of them. ‘Other people’ _aren’t_ my little brother.”

\----

Bruce woke up hazed and dizzy, his internal alarm clock going off the same way it always did when it was time to patrol.

Going out while buzzed was a feeling he’d grown used to after losing Jason. It was like slipping into a time capsule of setting the Batmobile to drive him out, his hands snapping open a packet of single use ibuprofen to down as he tried to pull fantasy from the reality of his memory.

He’d dreamt of Tim again. Feeling a burn of something fill him at his anger, the disapproval on his face when he found Bruce with alcohol. The occasional drink was alright- it was the vodka Tim disapproved of. It was how he knew Bruce was spiraling. 

Bruce had been so callous to him while training. The way his son would come running into the cave with new bundles of information and recommendations. Pamphlets for yoga and meditation to soothe addiction like Bruce hadn’t already learnt both those things from masters of their craft in Tibet.

Bruce watched memories of him play in his mind like an old movie, guts clenching and mind thinking about how never, never- Bruce wouldn’t, couldn’t touch him. He didn’t. He didn’t.

He did.

He did.

Bruce swallowed the pills dry and continued into the city.

\----

“Jason.” 

Jason tensed, body hunched over his collection of guns, cleaning rag and oil in hand.

“God, what now Goldie?”

Jason didn’t know why the others had taken Jason’s presence in the events as permission to invade his safehouses and bother him. He wasn’t going to knock the fancy little comm that Barbara had hooked him up with but that didn’t mean he wanted Dickhead-

“Thank you.” 

Jason tensed further, fingers turning white with the pressure of pinching the small parts of his favorite .44. He’d gotten it at a convention.

“I…” Dick hesitated. “I never would’ve known if it wasn’t for you.”

Jason clenched his jaw, scrubbing oil into the barrel of a pistil. Dickhead was thanking him, like Jason hadn’t found out via a fluke. Hadn’t gotten bored that night and decided to terrorize the Replacement that he knew would stray into his territory for information.

“Yeah well,” Jason shrugged, trying to pretend that he was unbothered. “ If you ask me you’d be the only one who thinks that.”

Roy was the only cape that Jason kept in frequent contact with and the tension between Big Blue and Bruce had steadily leaked down to their level. It’d apparently been causing more than a few arguments between several heroes. 

Personally, Jason thought it’d be better if they all just came out and said it. Branded Bruce with a fat scarlet letter and left it at that.

Let the wolves rip him to pieces.

Jason didn’t care. He really didn’t give a _fuck_ what happened to the Big Bad Bat anymore.

It was ironic really. Any other day of the week and Jason would’ve put a bullet into someone’s skull for doing what Bruce did.

He would’ve fed into the white hot rage that always simmered under the surface of his skin and planted that bullet _deep_ into someone’s cranium.

“Tim will understand one day.” Dick continued, wet eyes drifting down to Jason’s floor. “He’ll...he'll thank you for this one day.”

Jason held back a scoff. He’d already crossed paths with the baby bird. Spotted him on a neighboring rooftop as he ran his usual beat. 

The glare he’d leveled at Jason could’ve frozen hell over.

Like he gave a shit about what a runt thought of him. Jason was sure he’d already made that perfectly clear.

“He still not speakin’ to you?” Jason asked. It’d been one of the things that had driven Dick to quiet, trembling tears the last time he’d been around. From what he knew the baby bird was giving the big bird the run around.

Jason was just grateful that no one had tried to appoint him to be responsible for the kid’s ‘rehabilitation’.

“Dinah thinks they might be making some progress but I..he-I just don’t understand why he doesn’t _understand_.”

“Kid’s been doing this shit for years.” Jason replied, shrugging as he started reassembling all his guns starting from the left and working his way to the right. “It’s all he knows- wasn’t that what you said when you started house training the demon?”

Dick Grayson’s house for broken birds. How fitting.

“Yes but Damian’s trauma and abuse isn’t tied to a single person- one that he believes _did_ and _still_ has his best interest in mind.”

Jason nodded slowly, pulling out a rusting screw on one of his pieces. He frowned down at it.

“How’s he doing by the way.”

Jason hadn’t seen any news reports or magazines about Dick’s attempts to file for custody of Damian.

Dick made a deep sound of frustration.

“He’s still upset with me about the papers he saw. It’s going to go nowhere unless I can prove, without contest, that Bruce is an unfit parent and that Damian would do better under my care.”

“Which you can’t.” Jason filled in for him, frowning. He’d been against letting Bruce get off in the beginning. So had Dick and Superman.

Barbara had brought them all back down to Earth and pointed out the rationale to going after Bruce the way they did all their crooks. All the shit it would cause in both the civilian and cape worlds. The fallout that would proceed exposing Batman and Bruce. 

Jason hadn’t been happy. No one had.

Even less so when Dick realized they wouldn’t be able to pull Damian out of the manor from Bruce’s care. Dick had been on the verge of hyperventilating when he’d asked Barbara to search for any evidence of Bruce having done anything to Damian- if he’d tried.

The answer had been no but Dick had been no less intent on pulling Damian away from Bruce.

“Alfred sent a postcard.” Jason offered an attempt to offer Dick a crumb of comfort. “He said he’s going to start heading back so if it makes you feel better- he’ll be in the manor to raise Damian.”

Dick let out a shaky sigh.

“It helps a little.”

Jason turned back to his guns. Silence fell between them like a blanket, Jason’s focus locked on his task as he tried ignoring the elephant in the room. The reason why Dick had likely come-

“Red Robin took down the Riddler last night with Batman.”

Jason’s jaw tensed. Yeah, he’d seen the morning paper.

Dick let out an exhausted breath, his form settling down into Jason’s ratty couch.

“So they’re talking now?”

Dick made a throaty sound, his fingers scratching into the fabric of his jeans.

“I thought Bruce was avoiding him when Tim came back.”

“Well apparently not anymore.”

Jason shook his head, dropping his guns down and pushing back to rest against the arm of his sofa.

“Fuck.”

Dick nodded in agreement- eyes dark.

“Sometimes I wish he was just a monster.”

Jason stayed silent.

“Then I hate myself for wishing that Tim had felt hurt by him- just so I could’ve dealt with him myself.”

“Would’ve been easier.” Jason commented, stretching a leg out and wincing when one of his guns nudged a bruise. “But hey, It’s like you said- maybe they’ll thank us for this some day.”

“Yeah.” Dick nodded slowly, brows hesitantly creased. “Yeah.”

\----

“Bruce was escalating.” Dinah said slowly, posture forcibly relaxed as Tim stared at her. “From what you’ve told me- your interactions were bleeding the line of...professionalism.”

Tim frowned.

“Georgiana’s purpose was to serve as Brucie Wayne’s date- this was your first encounter with each other with one of you as your civilian persona-”

Tim nodded slowly, idly tugging at a loose string from his sweater vest.

“-Bruce impeded your ability to perform your duty by elevating your interactions beyond what they were originally meant-

Tim pursed his lips.

“-He brought you to Wayne manor, he invited Georgiana over with the intent to have sex with her- why?”

Tim sat silent.

“Why?” Dinah repeated, tone slow even as Tim felt the intensity of her eyes on him. “When the mission was already finished- why?”

Tim sat silently

\----

“You acted like a jealous teenage girl to me sometimes.” 

Bruce twitched. His cape blew slightly in the wind, Tim beside him staring down at the city below them as he spoke like he was commenting on the weather.

“I realized that in therapy.” Tim continued. Batman remained still beside him, solid like a statue.

“My first date with Zo- you and Jitter crashed through the ceiling of the restaurant we were in…” Tim trailed off. “You could’ve taken him. _You could have_. But you brought the fight to me- all because I didn’t want to leave my date to fight him with you.”

“Tim-”

“When I told you off, you said it was an _‘accident’._ ”

Bruce went silent.

Tim rested his hands on his waist, wrists pressed against his utility belt.

“When Jason accosted Heather you left me on that roof- told me to use the cash she got to take a cab home-”

“I shouldn’t have-”

“Matches hogged Sunshine at the club- he made it harder for her to keep her target’s attention.”

Bruce stayed silent.

“I know you’re sometimes controlling B. _I know._ ” Tim repeated. “I get that a lot of the time it’s to protect me or it’s for the mission- it’s our job.”

It was Tim’s job. Tim had been doing his _job_. He’d been solving the case and catching the bad guy- that’s what Tim had been doing. The entire time- that’s what Tim had been doing.

“Dick, Babs, everyone- all of them were on my case about me doing my job-”

Tim had been so angry at first- so taken aback.

“-they took me from Gotham for doing my job-”

Tim had worked his way back in. Gone out that first night he’d been back and argued with Dick for the entire night when he’d been caught.

“-tried to take my cape for doing my job-”

Clark’s unappreciated appearance in Tim’s newly reoccupied apartment- his attempts to pull Tim away from returning to work.

“-lost trust in me for doing my job-”

The way Barbara monitored his cases now. How Damian always snooped on him now- how convinced that Tim was still faking or trying to stick his nose further into Tim’s business despite the resistance of everyone around him to let him.

Tim paused , fingers looping into his utility belt. 

“That’s what we were doing Bruce, right?”

_What had Bruce been doing?_

Tim tilted his head up, white outs locking with Bruce’s. He couldn’t see his eyes- Bruce couldn’t see his either.

That’s what Bruce had been doing too. All those missions where they crossed paths. Bruce had to have been working his cases alongside Tim- or why else would he have been there?

_What had Bruce been doing?_

“Right, Bruce?”

That’s what Bruce had been doing.

His job, his part for the mission.

_What had Bruce been doing?_

Bruce’s jaw was clenched tight, his mouth parting, white outs locked with Tim’s.

Tim just needed to know- 

_What had Bruce been doing?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember reading the fight with jitter- when Bruce had basically crashed tim’s date. He’d said it was an accident but to me it’d always felt too much like bruce was bitter about tim refusing to leave his date to join bruce on a case. There’s so many instances of bruce being really controlling but this one was just the most memorable for me
> 
> I decided to stick with my original intent of the ambiguous ending of what bruce chooses to do. Either way he’s still already lost the trust and respect of a lot of people close to him and no matter what he chooses to do it's not going make anyone hate him any less. but like dinah said- there were signs that bruce had been escalating- something that bruce himself even seems to be aware of. whether he tells the truth or lies to preserve his relationship with tim well....
> 
> \---  
> also slightly off topic but i saw this fic was nominated for dc dark week and i just want to let the person who submitted know that im grateful! i'm glad you enjoyed the fic and it means a lot!!!❤❤❤


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